After much soul searching I have narrowed my choice of new digital compact to the Ricoh Caplio R7 or Canon 860 IS

I have eliminated others because of bulk, and image quality and by that I mainly mean noise - so thats the fujis and panasonics out(?)

Now having read the reviews on this site (thats for you Mark Goldstein...!) and many others these are the remaining issues I need to resolve

Both have got great , good and mediocre reviews with people disagreeing on noise and exposure issues - looking at the sample images on this site it appear that the ricoh images are very poor compared to the canon. How could both cams get the same score for image quality or am I missing something? The Ricoh images appear very fuzzy with no details in the leaves of the trees..

Also some people have complained about low light level/ indoor exposure and flash issues with the ricoh, saying it is very bad at taking pics of people inside, others say it is a bit slow but fine... - also the loud buzzy noise it makes, is it really that loud?

The main minus point of the Canon is the zoom factor, although again I have read of mediocre image quality on the odd site.

Personally, I would prefer the Ricoh because the versatility of its longer lens would make it perfect BUT ONLY if the image quality is good enough (I have dreams of making large prints) and the other issues i mentioned above are not major/true.

The trouble with the reviews is that they are so wide ranging in their conclusions - who do you believe?

So which of these is better or is there anything else? - My main criteria are size, lens range and image quality. Any help would be greatly appreciated (Mark?)

Hi Ash1,

The Canon is better for image quality, but the Ricoh offers a bigger zoom. They're both about the same size. So you need to decide which are the most important features to you - image quality or zoom range