Panasonic FX2, Casio Z40, Olyumpus mini mju

Am trying to decide between these three cameras and would appreciate any comments or advice, especially on the Panasonic as I'm really struggling to find any reviews of it. It's a bit more expensive than the others, but I'm wondering if the image stabiliser would be a useful feature to have.

dont get the olympus, it's a fisher price toy, notice how they never made nikon f5's or canon eos 1's in prety colours. A 2x zoom is a larf. I would opt for a sony 'P' camera, instead.

I had a look at the Sony P range and wasnt sure which one to go for.

This all started off as we had our first baby at the weekend and various people have visited with cameras. My brother had a Casio Z4 and I was really impressed with its size and the picture quality (just on the LCD screen). We have a good 35mm compact and I thought I'd get a small digital for handy use.

However, I think I have "upsold" myself and am now thinking about plumping for a Sony DSC-P150S with 512 Mb PRO (£377 from pixmania) and a Canon IP8500 printer.

Do you think it's overkill ? Most of the time will be just taking snappy family photos, but I think it would be nice to have the quality and resolution to do the occassional large portrait. Would the above kit fit the bill or am I better off going more budget and leaving the portrait stuff to the pros ?

forget the 512 card, a 128 or 256 is actually loads, you should get around 50 highest quality on a 128, couple of hundred at regular prints size resolution.

After a trip to Dixons to check them out, I decided to go for the Sony DSC-W1 as a bit of a compromise over the DSC-P150. Reasons:

it's a bit cheaper - 202 instead of 270
it uses normal AA batteries so no need to spend 30-40 on an extra Li battery as I already have lots of AA rechargeables
5.1 M pixels should be enough anyway
It has a really good big 2.5 inch LCD screen
I found it more ergonomic to use than the P150 that has its lens right at the side of the camera

Also decided to get the Canon IP8500 rather than the HP8450 that was a bit cheaper - thought the quality and speed of the Canon would be better, the ink system is better and cheaper, quite happy to use my PC for printing rather than the convenience of the LCD display and direct card reading of the HP

Just waiting for it all to arrive now (Dixons couldn't match the price)