Advice on buying compact camera in price range £130-£200 please?

[dnk_wdc_steb]

Hi,

In another thread, I said about my dropping my Sony Alpha 200 DSLR and that I may need a compact camera.

I like the Alpha 200 but it does tend to be bulky and I'd prefer to have a decent compact available for a trip to the US that is coming up.

I think I have the following requirements:

> Price range of £130 to £200
> Good all rounder with at least 10MP
> Decent optical zoom - at least 10x
> Decent battery performance
> Must have manual modes for A, S etc
> Must take video
> If possible, should be metal bodied
I'm not so bothered about GPS as I hear it is a battery hog.

I've had a few digital cameras (3MP Nikon Coolpix, 8MP Canon with 4x zoom, Sony A200) and I would say that the best picture quality came out of the Canon - in some ways, it outperformed the A200. So, I think I would prefer a Canon camera but wouldn't dismiss the others or a Panasonic.

On Amazon at the moment, they have the Panasonic TZ10 for about 180 quid which seems to be a well regarded camera both in 'magazine' reviews and by users on Amazon but I read that the battery performance was not great and it has GPS which I can't say I'm too interested in.

Can anyone make any recommendations and/or comment on the suitability of the TZ10?

Thanks in advance,
DNK

[dnk_wdc_steb]

Just noticed the Canon SX130 at £170, too. I should add this to the list of possibles?

[canismajor]

Hi, I'm going to suggest the camera you've just mentioned above, the Canon SX130 for the following reasons; it has the zoom you need,12X, which means you have a zoom of 28-336mm, a 12mp sensor, manual modes, image stabilisation, a 3 inch LCD screen, and takes AA batteries. It weighs in at 308g and as said before, you prefer the imagery from this brand of camera. The RRP is £199 but will be available cheaper by shopping around. All the best, Mike.