currently have a Canon SD500...could use an update.

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible.
Budget would be about 350 or less.
Size

* What size camera are you looking for? Or does size not matter at all to you? As small as possible for the features that I need.

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?
7 and up
* What optical zoom will you need? (None, Standard = 3x-4x, Ultrazoom = 10x-12x)
standard would be fine
* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)
image quality is the most important. 10!
Do you care for manual exposure modes (shutter priority, aperture priority, manual)?
It would be nice to have the option.
General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
I would be using them to take pictures of my college life...while Iam at football games, at a club, at a friend's house etc... I just need it to do what I want it to do. Also it would be nice if it takes good pics while in the dark without the flash if possible... that might be hard but I want to see if its possible.
* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?
Not really but it would be nice.
Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos?
yes alot.
Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?
yes i will...currently my SD500 is having trouble taking pics and is having a lot of blurry pics being taken while at a football game and even at a concert where lighting is low and flash is not permitted.
Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?
Nope, Iam open to anything that performs well
Are there particular models you already have in mind?
I have the Canon SD850IS in mind and the Sony camera that is at the top of the most popular boards atm...Right now the Canon SD870IS is standing out right now. Anything in particular about this model that might lead to me getting this one instead of others?
(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD)
The Image stabilization would be nice, the rotating LCD would be nice as well. wide angle is also nice but not necessary.

 

The Canon SD models are very good overall cameras, but you will probably still experience blurry pictures at concerts. Most compact point and shoots really can't handle low-light well.

One series of cameras that does do well in low-light is the Fujifilm Finepix F series, specifically the F31fd and F40fd. They allow you to increase the ISO (sensitivity) and get less noise than you would with all the rest of the compact point & shoots. They're going to be your best bets for shots without flash.

 

Interesting. Ill take that into consideration. Thank you very much.

Why is it that they can handle the low light situations? Is it because of their higher ISO sensitivity.

 

Yeah, the compact cameras have pretty under-powered flashes and when the ISO increases, the images get noisy quickly. In my experience, images get noisy and grainy once you get over ISO 200 in the compact cameras.