Best compact digital cameras

The Canon PowerShot SX260 HS' wider, longer lens, a few much-needed design tweaks, and excellent photo quality add up to one pretty great compact megazoom.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS20's 20x zoom lens might be the main attraction, but the camera is all-around excellent.

The feature-rich Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX30V has a great mix of speed and photo quality.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100's compact, elegant design, generally excellent photo quality, bright, fast lens, and speedy performance make a great package if you don't mind spending a little more money.

With a terrific lens and a great full-frame sensor, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX1 delivers the best photos we've seen from a fixed-lens camera. But that doesn't come cheap.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX150 is an excellent little camera that doesn't sacrifice features and performance for size.

Despite its shortcomings, notably its weak JPEG processing, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 delivers an excellent all-around shooting experience--fastest in its class, full featured, and capable of shooting some very nice photos.

Though we'd like it to perform better, dSLR shooters looking for a sidekick camera will find the Canon PowerShot S95's top-flight photos and a full manual feature set worth the tradeoff of its compact size.

The Canon PowerShot S100 is a generally great little camera for advanced shooters who don't mind slowing down a bit from a dSLR.

A great enthusiast compact for manual-focusing fans.