After my lodger bought a Sony camera, I was increasingly finding uses for it, and I started considdering in ernest getting one myself.
Read the DPreview of the SD500 here.
So far, I am extremely happy with it, and used it almost immediatly to shoot some pics of a party I went to.
The results can already be seen on Flickr, which I upgraded to a Pro account at the same time.
I need to spend some time learning how to use it properly though.