Charles, my previous camera (a Canon S40, with 4 megapixels and 3x zoom) is also over 3 years old, with about 20,000 photos. The S40 takes great photos and is exceptionally rugged and compact for ski mountaineering use, with a sliding lens cover that effectively turns the camera into a tiny armored brick when closed. I dropped the S40 on pavement near my car a couple years ago, it suffered no detectable change in performance (I doubt that most other cameras including the S1 would have survived that drop in working order). I've now owned 4 Canon digicams, including the A50 and S20 before the S40.<br><br>I bought the S1 last August thinking it would just be a supplemental camera, a car-only or hiking-only camera, but I was so enthralled by the amazing 10x zoom that the S1 quickly became my primary camera. I can live with the slight extra bulk and lack of armored body / lens cap just to have that huge IS zoom. The image-stabilizer is not only great for long telephoto shots, it's even useful in low-light conditions at wide angle where I can take sharp handheld photos at only 1/8 or even 1/6 second shutter speeds instead of 1/60 or 1/40 with a non-IS lens. The S1 shoots very high-quality video too at 640x480, 30 fps, but I haven't shot much ski video yet.<br><br>I'm seriously considering buying the S2 as soon as it comes out, for the even longer zoom and extra megapixels, despite the fact that it uses SD cards instead of CF (extra $$ for new cards) and even though my S1 is still quite new. The S2 addresses and fixes essentially all of the minor issues and quibbles with the S1 (most importantly the low megapixels if you're making big prints).<br><br>
