Fuji F40fd or Canon SD1000

[tenren]

Budget
Below $250

Size
Compact

Features

5+ MP should be enough

Standard zoom

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)
9

Do you care for manual controls?
Nice to have but not necessary, point and shoot is the goal.

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
I want to get a digital camera for my dad so it has to be easy enough for a beginner.

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?
no


Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos?
He will mostly shoot pictures with people in them. Now indoor lighting would vary but I would imagine it won't be as bad as in a bar.

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?
No

I was thinking the Fuji F40fd and Canon SD1000 fits well with what I want.
But I can decide which one would be better for "auto" setting in any environment with people. Which one is simple to use?

Fuji F40fd
- great low light
- price is slightly lower than SD1000
- a little bigger and heavier than SD1000

Canon SD1000
- slightly smaller and lighter
- more expensive
- good all around

What do you guys think? Which one would you get for your dad whose is a beginner.

[bascom]

Both are good. The SD1000 has a VF, does that matter? I thought the SD1000 was cheaper. What prices are you looking at?

If you can afford $300 you may want to wait for the Fuji F50 with auto red-eye removal. Or the A920 may be nice and is only $200.

[tenren]

Currently the Fuji F40fd is selling for $199 at amazon and it includes a free 2 Gb SD and there is a rebate of $30. While I see I can get the Canon SD1000 for ~$207 but I'll need to get a SD card.
I've reading reviews and it seems like people are saying the Canon SD800 IS is also quite good especially since it has wider lens and IS but it'll cost closer to $300.

Now my dad says that he'll prefer one that has date/time stamp and that I know of the ones I mentionned don't have it well actually the SD1000 has it for 1600x1200 so that is useless.
Actually are there any P & S camera that have the date / time stamp anymore.

[David Metsky]

Pretty much no, that feature doesn't seem popular with camera makers. All that info is in the EXIF data so it can be gathered at any time. There are third party programs that will take the EXIF data and place it on the image if you must have this feature.