solmar

"when important stacks of business cards."
I assume that it should read "importing". Lately I'm seeing quite a bit of mistakes of this nature on Engadget. Does anyone bother to proofread anymore? They're pretty obvious. At least one or two more people should read the articles (shouldn't take much time since it's only one paragraph) before publishing. Engadget is not your average blog, and shouldn't have your average grammatical errors in it.

@spyder
This isn't a P&S, get the auto modes out.
This isn't a P&S, get the movie modes out.
This isn't a P&S, get the LCD out.
This isn't a P&S, get the cheap prices out.

Nobody's forcing you to use these features. If you don't like them, don't use them, or buy a different camera. It's not as if the feature would get in your way or hamper/cramp your photography. Or is it that people are afraid that it would make them look less "pro" if it had some usability features of the common P&S? Just like when "movie" mode was introduced, so many people wailed and moaned that you'd think it was the end of the world.

@AyeBeAPirate
There are plenty of other models that don't have the articulated display, you know, so it's not like you lack choice. Also, Canon hasn't had any articulated displays in it's DSLRs, so it's about time (I've had the S series P&S zooms with articulated LCDs since they first came out). There have been times when I've felt that I would have benefited from these things, such as when taking pics over people's heads, taking very close to the ground pics, or things like that, where the viewfinder or normal LCD don't work well, if at all. And like some people mentioned, many prefer this type of display for video capture (I prefer an EVF/OVF, but that's not possible). If the resolution isn't horrible, it would be good enough, since the LCDs on DSLRs aren't really that suited for intense scrutiny anyways.

@mnhthebest
And nVidia deserved it, too, after *seriously* dropping the ball in the notebook GPU failure debacle that affected a huge number of mobile GPUs from two whole series. Do something stupid once, shame on the consumer, do the exact same thing twice, and in this scale, then shame, shame, shame be on the company. They lost a ton of credibility there, not only from the failures themselves, but from trying to cover it up and not doing nearly enough to rectify it. I'm never buying their products again.

@maattp
You must have *really* low expectations for a P&S camera if you think the iPhone could replace one. Tiny flash, low res, limited optics, limited low light, limited options, slow operation, amongst a slew of other shortcomings. Yes, a cameraphone will do in a pinch when you don't have any other option, but it won't ever be as good as a dedicated P&S (at least not in the foreseeable future). No amount of gee-whiz apps will change that.

If the 300EXR can actually deliver on the autofocus speed claims as well as produce decent high ISO performance, then we might just have a winner. The extremely slow (compared to DSLR) speed of autofocus on compacts has always been a huge crutch to using them for taking pictures when you actually want to take pictures, not 2 seconds later.

@Rockhurst

You're really freaking out over a statement that could actually come true. First of all they just said "some of the D3S's low-light capabilities". They didn't say "sensor". Look at today's budget cropped sensor DSLRs. They're light years ahead of what full frame DSLRs of only some years ago could do in terms of low light (among many, many other things). And subset of the lenses means just that, a subset, maybe the DX-only lenses. Calm down, and read again. Even so, they're allowed to dream, aren't they?

@sibyyhome

And all DSLRs have an aperture preview button. As for effects, really, most photographers apply their affects in photoshop.

And, since so far Panasonic has been the most successful in making an EVF even passable/tolerable, I don't think that we're quite there yet with pixel density in small displays.

With the current sales of DSLRs vs u4/3 and their like, it's pretty doubtful that mirrors (and their viewfinders) will die out anytime soon.

@sibyyhome
That's not the only problem. The BIG downfalls of compacts are:
1. Small sensor (and the IQ/DOF problems that come with it)
2. Lousy way to see what you're taking (LCD)
3. Unchangeable lens
4. SLOW autofocus
5. Horrible shutter lag/time to get ready from on switch

They've already (sort of) fixed 1 and 3 with u4/3's, but only Panny has been able to (sort of) fix #4 and #2 on some models. Still #5 left. The mirror is not what makes a DSLR appealing, but it does make it FAST. Anyone who's used a DSLR knows it's responsiveness is light years ahead of compacts.

@kapanak
Like another person has said, a DSLR is a camera first, a camcorder second. Although yes, you can get very shallow DOF (blurred backgrounds), you're giving away a lot of important camcorder functions, and getting jellocam for free. If you're making an indie film, then go for it. If not, get a camcorder.

The Panasonic HDC-TM700K and HDC-HS300 are within your budget and have gotten great reviews, and come with an EVF for when you want to actually see what you're recording outdoors.

Canon also makes great camcorders, but at this price range they tend to not have EVFs.