Criteria:

Don't care about fancy functions- Im never going to use them.

Great clarity with video function all at a good price.

"good price" = £50 or £300?

Canon

Lumix TZ* – simply the best compact and with a decent video function built in.

I just got a Fujifilm s2500 "bridge" camera and am well impressed so far, 18x zoom, 12mp and came with a case, batteries and a charger for under £200. I have a compact camera already though and just wanted something that gave a better quality image with a proper zoom, without going down the full blown slr route. you need to decide what you want from it first.

Closer to £50 if possible?

surely modern technology means you nowadays get great clarity for lower prices?

I have an old IXUS digital – circa 10yrs old and it was great (on its last legs). I dont really want to spend upto £200 though.

Get a Lumix GF1. Fantastic camera.

There's some utter bargains to be had on older compacts on Ebay these days. I'm looking for something small to take on a cycling holiday rather than my SLR and a Canon Powershot of around 4-5mp quality can be had for around a tenner it seems! As long as you're not fixated on a big megapixel count you can get a brilliant little camera for peanuts. I had a 4mp Powershot A85 which took brilliant pics, so I'm going to try and get another! 🙂

I love my IXUS 40, of a similar pedigree. OH got an IXUS 80 about a year ago, and it's as ace as my 40 only newer.

For "stash in a pocket and forget" cameras, they're hard to beat.

IXUS 40? Where to buy from though?!

why do you want video function? All the bike videos i see these days are rubbish 😉

How about these?

You will have to use AA batteries and the movie capture obviously won't be HD at this price.

I wouldn't recommend 12mp in a compact but the Nikon looks a better build.

I have the Canon Powershot above Peterpoddys old camera and it's ace. I bought it because it uses 4 AA batteries which are available everywhere, it has a large lens unlike the pinpricks you see on some compacts and it takes good video too. It uses the same processing as the DSLR's made at the same time so image quality is amazing. I had some photos printed at A4 size and some have thought they were taken with an SLR. Recommended.

Rob, which one is yours? IIRC it's a later model than mine, flippy screen and stuff?