I rarely write reviews but having read some of the ones hear I felt I had to. If you buy equipment and its faulty then send it back, if it continues to be faulty then send it back, get a refund and buy something else, dont slag it off straight away. Also dont compare sparkling wine to champagne as this is unfair to those who relay on reviews to make their judgement. If you are that good at photography or that serious why the hell are you buying a camera that costs £ 150.00. For those of you who want an honest review - this is worth every penny. The zoom is very good, the menu like all new toys is fine once you have used it a few time, the functions such as stability work well. One point here, who uses an 18 x zoom to take serious photos without a tripod or stable base - mmmm. Even your best SLRs would quiver at that thought. Grainy pictures means the settings are wrong or the camera is faulty, or they are called mobile phones, 8mp cameras with good lens systems are not grainy and none of the pics I have taken indoors, outdoors and on full zoom have been so.
In short if you want a camera that, as some have said, is the next step up from a compact then you cant go too far wrong with this one. If you want to take videos buy a video camera, if you want to choose between lens composition, raw and jpeg files and want full picture editing then buy an SLR.