Best deal on a replacement for my A70

Author's Rating:

Pros: A little smaller (2 AA's), Bigger screen, more resolution

Cons: Long write to card time

The Bottom Line: 
Good camera. Good for wide range of users.

Author's Review
Please note that this is basically a comparison between the A70 and A720 IS. I purchased the A70 in the summer of 2003. It has served me well until the sensor malfunction (for which there is a "recall"). I purchased the A720 on 12-20-2008 and received it on the next day with a Canon Pixma iP3500 printer from Amazon.com.
The 16 MB SD card that comes with the camera is barely enough to demonstrate that the camera works. That is the same sized card that came with the A70 almost 3.5 years ago!
Don't bother with alkaline batteries, except as a backup. I needed to use them over the Christmas holidays to document my 9-month-old daughter's first Christmas. Alkalines only lasted half of a day. Regardless, being able to use AA's is one reason that I got this model.
I do not use the digital zoom in still mode, but do use it in video mode. The camera allows this type of flexibility and keeps the settings. It is nearly required to use digital zoom in video mode because the optical zoom is disabled as soon as one starts to record video.
The screen is nice and big, the optical viewfinder is functional in a pinch, glad its there, don't use it much.
I use "P" most as it is nearly all automatic but allows for some additional flexibility. One initial complaint that I had is the long "write to card" time (~6 seconds). This can be overcome to some extent by selecting the "Continuous" mode, which will take many pictures as long as you hold down the button. Once one lets up though, the ~6 second wait starts (nothing to do about that except lower resolution).