Not Phil, but...
Les:I'm not Phil, but you are just looking for CHEAP advise. I have a Sony Mavica 81 (this is one of the older models now). The biggest advantage to the Mavica is that they use cheap floppies for the recording device. So you take all of the old floppies that AOL has sent you over the years and now you have a place to use them. I get between 9 and 20 pictures per floppy, depending on resolution and picture content (don't ask me why, cause I don't know). The resolution is good and they can be view immediately through the screen on the camera. You can copy a diskette on the camera and you can also initialize them on the camera. The negative side of these cameras is that they DO NOT have a view finder like a regular 35MM. They have an LCD or LED screen so it is what you see is what you get. The down side to this is that in bright sunlite it is sometimes difficult to see. They also do not use AA or AAA batteries. They have a NICAD or Lithium battery, so they need to be charged up periodically. I personally have two batteries. They also take about 3-5 seconds between shots to record on the floppy (you are not going to get any action shots of Orcas or Dolpins with these cameras.I will tell you that I love this camera. I know that Phil had one and was NOT pleased with his, but I think it was a Mavica 5x or 7x model with lower resolution. I have posted a couple of articles in the Photo Forum that you can look at. This will give you an idea of what to expect. If you what to contact me directly, feel free to e-mail me.Steve Dions/v Heather MarieRio Vista, CA