I received this camera as a Christmas gift last December. I thought it was a decent camera - it was compact and had a lot of great features. My only complaint initially was the lag time between shots. Then over the summer, my cradle quit charging the camera for no appearant reason. Since this was a gift, I did not have the receipt so I could not take advantage of the warranty. Casio is charging around $200 to fix the problem. This seems a little on the high side considering the camera isn't even a year old. I won't be buying any more Casio products nor would I recommend them to anyone.

For the first 2.5 months of ownership, I was very pleased; however, the camera now has difficulty focusing. The manual indicated the topic matter did not have enough contrast. (Hmm...perhaps a manufacturing bug, identified prior to distribution?) I then tested the theory, locating high contract topics with the same results. At this point, I contacted the manufacturer and they suggested I send the camera in to be repaired. Boo! I expect a product like this to provide years of service, not months. Save your money and look for a more reliable product.

I liked the Exilim much better than the Optio S. I am a current Pentax Optio S owner but had the Exilim previously. I used the Exilim extensively for my honeymoon and loved it! The only 2 cons I experienced with the Exilim is 1)the flash is not powerful so not ideal for taking pictures in dim light and 2) the docking station broke after the first month. If Dell, the reseller, wouldn't have hassled me about replacing the docking station I would not have returned it.

I found the Exilim to be much more user friendly and better designed ergonomically. The 2 advantages of the Optio S is that it performs better under dim lighting and is slightly smaller. My primary gripe with the Optio is with its super slow shutter speed. My goal was a simple point and shoot camera to conveniently 'capture the moment' after I have my baby. Adults can't even sustain a genuine smile/pose long enough for me to take a good candid shot let alone expect an infant to. I feel like I keep missing the moment vs capturing it. The downside outweights any potential advantage to me, unless your primary targets are still lifes in dim settings.

Though in most respects both cameras are very comparable, I still think the Exilim is a superior camera overall. In retrospect, I would've reordered another Exilim.

EX-Z3 3.2MP Digital Camera is a great camera, fits nicely into your hand, about as small as can be and still comfortable to hold and manipulate. Pictures are sharp. With release time lag of about 0.01 seconds and a 2-inch LCD screen, it is a real good shot. There are some drawbacks, though: the flash is weak. While the electronic programming allows for just about any kind of picture you want to take, store and manipulate - and more, the menu is not very user friendly. Same with the program to transfer pictures to a computer - it is complicated, not easily understandable. As far as I could see, it has no picture-turning mode, i.e. from horizontal to vertical. It is not possible to burn photos directly from the program to a CD. An additional burn or photo-handling program is needed for that, requiring transferring of pictures, i.e. additional steps. Unless you buy an extra printer (expensive, considering cost of photo-quality printer and relatively high recurrent costs of color cartridges and photo-paper - regular color printers are OK but not great) which allows printing directly from the camera (via the docking station included in the package), you are in for a pretty lengthy process until the pictures are print-ready on a CD.

Would I recommend the EX-Z3 3.2MP Digital Camera ? - Yes, by all means. Its neat. But I would also recommend to the manufacturer some improvements along the lines described above, i.e. improved flash capacity and user-friendliness of in-camera programs, as well as those used for downloading / transferring and eventually easy burning of picures on a CD.

It is just so simple but so powerful camera, with easy handling, and small size and mass.

I also had a problem w/ camera not recharging ... just about the time the warranty expired. Don't know if it was the cradle or the camera...Casio wanted $199 to fix. No thanks! No more Casio cameras for me.

Up until then, I would give it 3.5 stars. While the size was supposed to be the selling point, I always felt it was almost too small.

Lag time between clicking shutter and "taking" the picture drove me nuts!