Sony DSC TX7

This point and shoot camera comes with image processors of Sony's SLR series.

I don't like Sony cameras, but this one has proved me wrong. It takes awesome pictures, and is great to handle. The large 3.5-inch LCD looks sharp at night as well as sunny afternoons. The pictures shot at night were of amazing quality, even without flash. Though photography pundits will fight about quality on a point-and-shoot, from an end user perspective the quality is pretty decent.

The built-in panorama sweep mode lets you capture 270º views. Its Handheld Twilight Mode lets you shoot 'brighter' pictures of a dark area in that panorama, and superimpose those shots to create a vivid and clear picture that a camera can't otherwise capture.

The camera also features full HD movie recording, and you can choose to record the movies and pictures on SD, SDHC or Memory Stick Pro HG Duo formats. The camera's limited battery time of 115 minutes is the let down here.

For me, it took time to get used to a lens on the side as I kept blocking the lens with my fingers. Also, I fear that the touch screen may wear out with heavy photography. But I am happy with the pictures and videos it shoots, and that is what you buy a camera for. In case you are in a war of megapixels, the TX7 supports up to 10.7 megapixels. It comes with a 25 mm wide-angle lens, and its image processor is the same as in Sony's SLR series. It may be a few megapixels short of its nearest competitor, but you won't feel short changed because of that.