New P&S advice please

[lowdrag]

I've had my Sony P150 for a few years now and really want a small camera with a wide angle zoom lens, about 28mm equivalent at the wide end. I looked a year back at the Ricoh and Panasonic ranges but was put off by the criticism of performance at high ISO levels. Has the market changed and what would you recommend please? For what I need the camera 7mp is adequate since I rarely print with the P150 - I have the SLR for such purposes. Over to you!

[Goldeeno]

How about a Canon G9... very well rated, and has all the features of an SLR

[cbcbcb]

Point & Shoot cameras always have poor performance at high ISO. It's a direct result of having a small sensor. If you aren't printing, it makes little difference, because you will scale the image down for on-screen use. Personally, I prefer a noisy high ISO image, rather than an overly strongly filtered one.

Look at the Canon IXUS range, and pick a model with the wide angle to fit your budget. The IXUS 860 IS ought to be pretty nice

[lowdrag]

Hmm, I think I'll go and have a look at the Ixus. The G9 is much too large for what I want - I might as well carry the D2X and 17/55 round my neck since the G9 isn't pocket size. This little camera will mostly get used in the pits and indoors since for most of my photography I have press passes and instal myself for the day at one bend or another - the gear is too damned heavy to carry around! It'll also reside in the glove box the rest of the time - one never knows when it'll come in handy.

[gingerpaul]

I know you probably won't get one anyway but the G9 suffers from high ISOs too. Anything above 200 isn't much use unfortunately.

[lowdrag]

Strangely I picked up a magazine and read about the Nikon S600 which has a wide angle zoom and apparently good high ISO results (according to Nikon anyway). Anyone seen it or read a review?