Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LS80 8.1 MP Digital Camera - Silver

I bought this camera used, so the price/value for money point is irrelevant.

This is an excellent little camera. It is slim and lightweight so that it easily slips in your pocket or bag and you barely know it's there. It has a good size screen so you can actually see the picture you've just taken at a reasonable size. The controls are simple and when in automatic mode, it really is "point-and-shoot", which is what you need if you're buying this class of camera.

Panasonic cameras and camcorders often have Leica lenses and going by the quality of the images, I suspect that this camera has a lens of, or near the quality of Leica ones.

The camera is powered by 2 x AA batteries which means you can buy replacements almost anywhere if you're caught short. However, rechargeable NiMH batteries are the way to go because they last a lot longer than alkaline cells when used in cameras. In my old Nikon camera, you had to select the type of battery you were using, but this one successfully auto-detects it.

I bought this for my 8-year old son who is going on a school trip, so I wanted something cheap (in case he broke it or lost it) and easy to use (because he's not had a lot of experience with cameras).

I prefer to have an optical viewfinder on a camera, which this one doesn't have, but the large, bright display partially compensates for that. Having a viewfinder means holding the camera near to your face rather than at arm's length, which I find results in a better picture because you can brace your arms against your body. That said, this camera has jitter/movement detection and image stabilisation, which appears to work very well.

I've been a fan of Panasonic products for many years and this one does not disappoint.

I bought this for my wife who wanted a simple to use camera, it certainly is easy to use being "point and shoot" simplicity. I must say to my mind this 8MP camera out performs my Sony 12.1MP camera the colours seem a bit warmer and nearer to the scene being photographed than my Sony which to my mind has a very slight blue/white tint. I never noticed this until we both took the same picture and compared the results however to be fair the difference is only very slight.
The Sony DSC-S2100 is equally simple to use and I'm very fond of it.