I was looking online at the Canon SD1400 recently as someone had asked me about it. Looks pretty good- simple to use, small, good focal range, good video.
Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS Review
I vote for the Sony point and shoot ones also T90.
There is the Sony store above Sogo in Causeway bay that has all the products displayed and you can play with them.
sony centre in wai fung building nathan rd, also one in harbour city
Conclusions page for latest group test of compacts at DP Review here:
(Go back to beginning if you want all the details)
'Compact Super Zoom' Camera Group Test (Q2 2010) Review: 24. Conclusions and ratings: Digital Photography Review
You can check the Fortress price for reference here:
http://www.fortress.com.hk/fortress/.../Sf_render.jsp
Sure, I wasn't particularly reccomending Fortress as a place to buy the camera but their website does give the OP a good starting idea of which cameras are broadly in her budget. She can then shop around at will.
That said, for a budget compact like this then chains like Fortress and Broadway are probably perfectly fine as the savings from shopping around in camera street are going to be fairly minimal.
If you're purchasing a SLR and lenses, for example, then definitely the likes of Wing Shing, Tin Cheung, Kowloon Photo etc are definitely the better option.
I dont intend to look around much due to time constraints and will just go to Broadway and Fortress and couple of shops in TST (Echo and New Sankyo)... so should be ok if there wont be much saving anyways.
Sony's do have a reputation for make nice cameras with particularly poor handling. They tend to focus on making the camera look slick from the outside which often means putting most of the controls inside menus which make them fiddly to use (by the time you've dug into the various layers of menus to change the exposure the thing you were shooting has gone). This is of course generally a problem with compacts, but tends to be particularly so with Sonys.
Of course this is where personal preferences come in, if you're going to shoot on auto anyway then having a slim, sleek camera is not a bad thing. If you're going to be adjusting settings manually then you want more physical, non-menu controls which will generally make the camera less pretty but give better handling. You pays your money you makes your choice.
if you want the best compact camera...go with Fuji F series. There is nothing that beats these cameras. Why? because of their low light level shots.
most cameras boast about their camera quality, but it can only be achieved in best of light situations. once you start going indoors and early morning/evenings/night.....their camera quality goes to shit.
Fuji has unbelievable quality for these compacts, making them relatively noiseless and super sharp with great exposures...all times of day and night.
i have the F31FD and the F200EXR...both of which are flawless and i have yet to encounter a better compact on the market.