Sony W150 or Canon SD1100 or SD850

[texmann]

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible.
Up to $400

Size

* What size camera are you looking for? Or does size not matter at all to you?
Pocket sized

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?
6- 8

* What optical zoom will you need? (None, Standard = 3x-4x, Ultrazoom = 10x-12x, Other - Specify)
3x to 5x

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)
8

Do you care for manual controls?
No

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
Taking pictures of kids

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?
Probably not

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos?
Sometimes

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?
Yes

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?

Are there particular models you already have in mind?
Powershot SD1100
Powershot SD850
Sony DSCW150
Which one would you recommend?

(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD)
Stabilization

[KCook]

They are all quite good. Happily DCresource has reviewed all 3, so we can make critical comparisons. If a lot of your shooting will be indoors without flash, then the Sony image has less noise at extreme ISO. But that is a pretty darned specialized application. For most purposes I would say get the one whose control layout works best for you.

Kelly Cook

[texmann]

Thanks.

Are there any other cameras that I should consider?

[KCook]

For the same budget a Fujifilm S1000fd or Panasonic TZ4 will give you a whole lot more telephoto with their big zoom lenses. However these are not pocket size cameras, though you could get the TZ4 into some jacket pockets. For a true pocket camera you already have a very good short list.

Kelly

[AndyfromVA]

How about the Panasonic FS20?