I have had the Casio Exilim EX Z40 digital camera for about 3 years now, and I have had no big problems with it. The zoom is not a wow factor, but for this size of camera it's hard to find a bigger one. It is also a very small nice design with a metal finish to it. It takes a good picture in most conditions apart from at night. It has a long shutter speed then, and will not produce the best photos. The internal memory is not that big, but I bought a 512Mb memory card and I haven't had to worry about that. I think this is a great camera, and I would recommend it!

I bought the Casio Exilim EX Z40 digital camera from www.bananapc.com for $199.99 with free shipping about 2 years ago (I think). Good deal, fast shipping, good business.

Appearance is just plain sexy. The camera is mostly metal, with a solid construction and very stylish, well, style. It has a protected lens that opens and closes fast and without hesitation, and very easy to use navigation/controls.

The 2" screen is very bright inside, but can be very hard to see in direct sunlight. It seems bright enough for my uses, and is crisp and clear. The viewfinder is also an excellent feature; just make sure you clean it often, because after sitting in a pocket for a while lint/dust tends to build-up in the view finder.

As far as performance goes, I am pretty satisfied. Macro mode takes very clear pictures, and the flash works well on this camera. A down side to the flash is that it does take some time for it to "charge", if you shoot before the flash is ready it won't flash, obviously. Not a huge drawback though; I'm just impatient.

The vast amount of presets is amazing. It has modes for animal pictures, night time pictures, black and white, sepia, text, and food etc., the list goes on and on; and all of the modes seem to work VERY well (night pictures are my favorite).

Now for the bad...

The built-in memory is rather small. While you can take MASSIVE pictures, you will also run out of memory fast. I opted to buy a 512MB SD memory card because I like to take large resolution pictures, and I can hold about 600 with the largest resolution.

Also, movie quality isn't that great. You must be in a well lighted room to see anything in the video, and with a low fps rating, they aren't really movie quality. Of course, a camera is for pictures not movies, so this is somewhat of a mute point.

Zoom was the biggest downside to the camera. It has 3x optical and 4x digital zoom. That's a total of 12x zoom, and it's not too pretty. The optical zoom is great for me; just when I want to sneak in a bit closer for a picture, but using the digital zoom is kind of pointless. Shots usually turn out somewhat grainy when you zoom in all the way, and at 12x they appear "cloudy" for me. I almost never zoom in this much, but when I want to, it's kind of disappointing.

Overall, I would still recommend this camera to anyone who just wants a good point and shoot device. The picture quality is excellent, as long as you're not zooming excessively. Movies are average quality. Sound recording is good and useful, and the endless amounts of presets are convenient.

If you're looking for a camera designed more for "advanced" photographers, I'd look elsewhere.

Bought the Casio Exilim EX Z40 at Sharper Image in August of 2004. Have been very happy with the camera. Wife took the camera and wanted to take pictures one day, turned it on, the lens came out, it beeped a few times, and it never did anything else. Casio support says they'll look at it and see if it's covered under warranty (lens damage isn't, but manufacturing defects are). A week later I get an invoice for $207.95. Even though I called their support number (1.800.706.2534 option 1,1,then 2) several times (while the letter was in the mail) asking for a status they told me nothing and let the letter surprise me. They even said I'd have to pay to have it sent back to me after originally telling me I wouldn't have to. The support people were short and gave the impression they couldn't care less.

This was a birthday present for my wife and it lasted 6 months. Be wary of any of these small cameras as they say they have a 1 year warranty but most of the complaints I've read online deal with this same issue (and none are covered). Sharper Image offered a 'no questions asked warranty' for additional $$ that, in hindsight, I should have bought... if you're going to get one of these small cameras, don't make the same mistake.