answer:I am a huge fan of Canon. They make very high quality, affordable equipment and their customer service is excellent. I have owned 3 Canon point-and-shoots. SD100, SD450, and the S70. I should state first off that I have not used the S90. However, I own the S70 and it is the best point-and-shoot (PAS) I have used to date. The image quality is consistently crisp and good, requiring very little post-processing. Other Canon PAS, particularly the Elphs (SD line), have a soft focus effect that probably would be fine for most users, but as a photographer, it irks me a bit. Mainly because these photos require post-processing later and it’s time-consuming. The biggest con that I can think of is that dark photos and night shots are extremely noisy, to the point of them being unusable. So, if you plan on taking photos with a lot of blacks/darks, you may want to consider another model. If you plan on taking mainly daylight or well-lit shots, you should probably have no issues here. Here is depreview.com’s summary of their S90 review. Now, I know you say you want a PAS, and you may be able to find the S90 at a great deal somewhere online. If I were you, though, and thinking of plunking down $400 for a camera, I personally would save up to pay the additional amount to get a Canon EOS Rebel on eBay or whatever for $450—$550. But that’s just me reeeeeeeeeally wanting a digital SLR. :)