Purchased and returned the camera.  From an optical perspective and the quality of the images, quite a great camera. Considering the substantial cost, several items were very disappointing and caused me to return it on a  cost vs. benefit aspect:  1) The camera does not come with a recharger and  appropriate NiCad (or better) batteries. Regular alkaline batteries last  about 30 min. for normal use.  2) The connection to the PC requires a  serial port only. Would be a nice option to include USB hookup. My  computer's serial ports are all used for other devices.  3) An 8MB flash  card that holds a mere 16 images in the 'normal' mode. 4) When connected to  the PC, the pictures cannot be easily transferred to software programs that  can sort, package or send the pictures.  A cumbersome copy procedure has to  be utilized to get the pictures on the hard drive; from there they need to  be imported to the software. Even with a 450 Pentium II machine, the  transfer was slow (even at the fasted speed setting for the serial port).  The instructions confirmed that photo software does not recognize the  camera as a device to copy from.  It should work just like a scanner (from  a system's perspective).