[jchen]

Alright, I'm heading off to college this fall and plan to take many pictures which of course leads to the question: what should I buy? Portabiliby is an important factor and perhaps useful features would be nice too, the number of megapixels is really irrelevant for me as long as it's above 2, it should be fine. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations, thanks.

[MrForgetable]

can you go a little above 200 dollars?

because the Canon Powershot SD200 sounds perfect for you. it's VERY small and light. probably has enough manual controls for you to play with. Great movie mode if you're into that kind of thing. image quality is decent to good depending on the situation. it has a super-fast start up time and it's extremely quick in operation.

the only problem is it is around 220 dollars at the cheapest reputable dealers. maybe you could eek it off, but maybe you can't, as you probably need a decent sized memory card and other accessories as well.

a not as compact canon A510 comes in at well under 200 dollars and has features galore as well as a 4x optical zoom. it's bigger and has is a little slower in operation than the SD200.

[red rocket]

I got me a Canon PowerShot A400. Has a few design flaws, but feature-wise, it's pretty comprehensive.

[crazyjohnson]

My sis got a Nikon Coolpics 4600. Nice little camera.

[jchen]

I've found a deal for both the Nikon Coolpix 4600 and the Canon Powershot SD200 for $200 (each of course, not together) so it's now down to those two. Which one?

Let the fight begin!

[MrForgetable]

i'm not a canon fanboy (i own an olympus), but honestly i think the SD200 is the better camera overall. nikon's high end camera's are nice, but their consumer camera's are usually a bit lacking in controls.

[crazyjohnson]

While I know little about the SD200 in particular, I know that Cannons are nice. It looks like both are basic point and click entry level cameras without any advanced features. For the basics either should be fine.