Canon PowerShot S100 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver),1.0 out of 5 stars Poor image quality, December 18, 2011

As Richard Wanderman noted in his review ("I have not taken a sharp picture yet with this camera"), I was unable to take a photo (even with the camera set on "Auto" for point-and-shoot photos) that was sharply in focus. I took the same "Auto" photos with my old Sony CyberShot DSC-W120 and with the new Canon PowerShot S100, and the comparison of the two sets of photos clearly showed that the Sony consistently produced pictures that were in sharp focus while the new Canon S100 did not. And it didn't matter whether the photos were close-up or long range.
There were other things that irritated me about the Canon S100, some of which may have been a matter of becoming used to it but, for instance, on the Sony, it is sufficient to turn the dial to movie mode and depress the shutter to shoot a movie but on the Canon, even when setting the dial to movie mode, one must still press the separate "record button" (and depress the shutter) to shoot a movie.
The Canon's handbook (or operating manual) is 236 pages long (on a CD) and it isn't always logically written and compiled, that is, all the information that one might need, e.g., for shooting and downloading a movie, is not presented in one useful place.
As others have noted, with the Canon, one must be careful to avoid holding the camera by its top left side, as that is where the flash pops up.
Perhaps I had just not learned how to use it correctly but in the Auto mode, the Canon appears to have two choices - flash off or flash on, with the auto function of the camera deciding whether a flash is needed. In situations where the background is bright (and thus the camera decides that a flash is not needed, even if one points the focus at a darker spot in the foreground), the flash doesn't fire. Again, on the Sony, there is an option to use a "fill-in" flash, when one wants the foreground to be well-lit.
Not withstanding the fact that the Canon S100 is clearly a very sophisticated camera, I felt that it was $429 poorly spent (largely because of the poor Image Quality) and so felt obliged to return the Canon PowerShot S100 to the shop where I had bought it (Best Buy).

Review by AHD