Which should I buy? It'll be given as a gift and I know nothing about cameras!

Why is this camera ranked so much lower than the #1 Canon Powershot SD770? or the Nikon Coolpix S550? I'm trying to decide which of the three to buy! Can anyone explain to me which I should buy instead of the simple ranking I find on here.

LONG ANSWER: My apologies to Kodak, but they seem to have gotten behind in the digital camera race. For one thing, Kodak corporate heads decided several years ago that "digital photography" just wasn't going to be that big a deal, with what the resolution was at the time. They decided to stick with their Cash Cow, which was the traditional film and chemical processing (just like Polaroid did, which then bankrupted Polaroid. The name Polaroid is still around, as the name itself was sold as a trademark, but the Polaroid Corporation founded by Edwin Land is gone....). So, other people with more foresight (the Japanese) and also with much R&D invested, I might add, pursued digital photography. The advancements in cameras from Japan coupled with the advancements in color printing (HP and Japan) led to the perfect storm of decent resolution in both the CAMERA, on the print PAPER, and also BTW in the PC monitors and televisions. By the time Kodak realized the tsunami taking place in the photography world, it was WAY late. They have been trying to catch up ever since.

SHORT ANSWER: Both Canon and Nikon are good cameras, they are the result of much R&D as well as market experience. Both are renowned for their lens manufacturing. I prefer the Canon line, I have 3 of them, 2 Nikons, 1 Casio and 2 Sony camcorders. The next camera I buy will be a Canon.

I have this camera and I actually don't see what all the fuss is about. I mean people are talking about washed out colors or slow reaction time but I haven't had any issue at all with it. I like the touch screen and so far the picture quality has been amazing. I mean I was actually able to take a picture of me and zoom in far enough to see the actual thread pattern on my clothing without blur. I would recommend this camera to someone... maybe I am just not as picky as the rest of the community or maybe kodak worked the kinks out but I honestly think this is a pretty good camera that is extremely easy to use. I wasn't the one to take the picture by the way haha I realize I said that but my girlfriend actually took it but you can actually zoom in enough to see the thread pattern.

I also have this camers and I think that this camers is a major step in inexpensive digital photography. For a camera with this clarity and to have the "expensive" features like burst capturing and candle light capturing is awesome! I just took burst pictures at 10MP of Lance Armstrong and they all came out spactular! and as for the clarity, I was fully zoomed out about 20 feet away and on my PC I can see the threads on his cloths.

I'm not sure about Kodak's past, but I like my camera. The only problem I have with it is the battery life will only last to fill up my 8GB card (about 3000 pics) in a day. or if I go screwing with the options for hours on end, like I did when I first got it