Originally posted by themadchemist
I vacillated between the Minolta Dimage XT and the Casio Exilim S20. Both are great cameras, but I went with the Dimage and never looked back. SMALL and great pictures.
The Dimage has a cool feature where you can make movies up to the whole length of the memory card, too, I believe. I think most cameras have a much shorter fixed time limit.
There's also the Pentax Optio S and Optio S4. They are 3 and 4 MP versions, respectively, of the "camera that fits in an Altoids tin" -- very, very small. Both have a 3X optical zoom.
The Dimage XT is available for a hair over $200, and the Optio S4 is available for <$300. I think the S is somewhere in between.... All of these use SecureDigital cards.
I don't have any of these -- I'm thinking about getting one in the near future.
This website:
http://www.dpreview.com/
has reviews of the S and the Dimage X (same optics as the XT but only 2 MP), and from these, it seems to me that the focal quality and colors on the Minolta are better.
But when you said that you needed a camera that takes clear pictures, if you meant in comparison to camera phones (which often put out blurry shots), I think any of these would work well.