I like Canon, and have never had a problem with any Canon;s I have bought and I have 10+. I use a SD800 and an SX210 quite often and they take great pics. The SX210 is a few years old and the SD800 is most likely 10 years old so I don't know by today's standards what is comparable. The SD800 does a better job at digiscoping than the SX210 but the SX210 has a big zoom capability and higher mp. Being small cameras make sure you get the image stabilizing feature, it will help. You might be able to pick up one of these off ebay for next to nothing if you don't want to pay the $250-350 for a newer model. Good luck and let us know what you ended up buying and why you chose what you did. Panasonic has a lot of followers as well, I love my Panasonic TV's!
BB