So far, a very reliable camera

I've owned a PowerShot A80 for over 2 and half years and thankfully have had no problems. Admittedly I am just a holiday snapper, but I have found it very reliable to date. It has gone backpacking with me in New Zealand and Australia among other places.

If I was to fault it in any way it would be on the following: (1) It is bulky & heavy when compared to some of the competition in 2006. (2) The viewer screen is quite small and (3) the 3x optical zoom is not enough. However, on the plus side, the heavy but handy AA battery feature makes it useful if you get stuck with re-chargeable batteries which cannot be re-charged. I have been happy enough with the usage I get out of the AA batteries, so long as you buy a decent set of batteries and not some cheapo brand. The adjustable screen viewer came in handy plenty of times on my journeys and so far the camera has been very reliable.

Overall, I've had a positive experience with the camera. Hopefully I won't run into any of these reported error messages and stuck lens problems folks have talked about :)