I am currently tempted to replace my ancient Canon PowerShot A80, a 4 mega-pixel cave-camera, with a more capable point-and-shoot. I originally aimed for a model with RAW capability, but after looking around the market and only (more or less) finding the gigantic Canon G9, I crossed RAW off my requirement list.

I haven’t looked at many other cameras, but my current candidate is the Nikon Coolpix P5100, mainly because I thought its controls would be similar to my Nikon D80’s. P5100’s 35mm-123mm lens is a bit lacking in the wide angle side though.

At this point Pentax’s upcoming Optio W60 certainly looks interesting. It doesn’t do RAW, but it has an internal (internal!) 5x zoom lens, from 28mm to 140mm. Being water proof is a nice bonus. Downside is that it doesn’t offer much manual control.

I eagerly await proper reviews.

[Via CrunchGear]