great outdoor pictures, average indoor pictures

I loved my previous Olympus Camedia 4040 camera. However, I thought it's time to upgrade to the 8 mega pixel world, and with a smaller, more compact design than a 4040 (fyi 4040 is a semi-pro, as I was taking some photo classes awhile back).

My criteria for the new camera are: compact, easy navigation menu, vibration reduction, 8 mega pixel. My decision pretty much came down to Canon, Olympus, and Nikon (these are my trusted brand). When Dell had a sale plus couple of coupons I had , I decided to purchased this camera.

After a month of usage, here's how I feel about the camera.

Indoor pictures : I must have been spoiled by my old Olympus camera. Olympus 4040 took much sharper indoor pictures. Coolpix P4's indoor picture looks fuzzy and if you zoom in too much, looks rather grainy. I think the grainy parts have to do with digital zoom which is something I do not like. Unfortunately, I havne't figure out how to prevent the camera from performing the digital zoom. Grade C-

Outdoor pictures : No complaints here. However, the pictures didn't exactly wowed anyone. The color looks much vibrant than indoor pictures. Grade (B)

Pre-Set setting pictures : The camera came with quite a few pre-set setting so you can take the picture in various pre-set light settings. I'll say this, the pictures taken in some conditions were actually very good. The one that amazed me the most was firework. I never had a good experience with ANY camera, but this camera did a very good job of it. Panoramic assistance was very easy to use. Grade B+

Video : Video quality itself is suprisingly good. However, I am grading it a B, because if you move the camera too fast, there's some very bad distortion between depth of the object. I think this have something to do with the auto focusing. Grade B

Vibration Reduction : It works, but only for vertical, not horizontal (as claimed by the manual). However it works very nicely. Expect some delays between pressing the shutter down and when the picture is actually taken. Grade B

Ease of Use : the power button is too small. Other than that, this is probably the easiest digital camera I've ever used with similar number of features. Once you turn the power on, you may switch the dial mode to take the picture based on the conditions you are in. Zoom in/out is simple. Some on-line reviews think the camera is too slippery, but I didn't find any problem with it. Grade A-

Battery : I've taken many pictures on one charge. I haven't had the battery run out. However, there's a problem. There's no battery meter on the display, and according to the spec, the meter or rather, and low battery indicator will come up only when battery is low. Grade B

Miscellaneous : It supports 2GB SD card, haven't tried the 4 GB version yet. Display is very good, but in bright sun, you may have difficulties seeing the lcd even if you turn the brightness up all the way. Flash does the job, nothing to shout about. Now a few complaints, the USB cable is not "proprietary" type. One end is your typical USB , but the camera end is totally different, and it's not the "convex kind" that I've seen, it's concave. I hated it when manufacturer introduce proprietary accessories. Grade C+

Overall : Let's face it, we expect camera to take good pictures. So picture quality weighs in heavily. Because of average indoor picture, I can only give this camera B-.