Canon's Digital IXUS 960 IS looks great and can take very nice images, but the digital camera's whopping 12 megapixels will leave you waiting between shots.
The smart Pentax Optio S12 looks and feels as classy and assured as any of the Pentax S series from recent years. The venerable chassis, though, doesn't really suit such a high-resolution sensor — the previous 10-megapixel S10 gives just as much usable detail.
The Pentax Optio A40 offers first-class picture quality, with optical image stabilisation and dynamic range adjustment looking interesting, but the middling specs are uninspiring and the toy-like styling isn't for us.
If you absolutely must have a 12-megapixel compact camera, the DMC-FX100 isn't a bad choice, but you can find better performing cameras with lower pixel counts for the same money.