I started there about 6 months with this, I know of no other but I can appreciate and compare the sharpness of my pictures and I must say I am very satisfied with this rocks! Very bright, sunlight is excellent, I have more trouble indoors but it surely comes part of me (since I sometimes get good results ...). Excellent color rendition and no visible deformities in portrait almost always to 50mm for portraits however. I took the stabilized version because at the time the goal was sold near 300 so almost at the cost of non-stab. I do not think it is essential for all that, if there is a big price difference between the two so take unstabilized.
To build quality, it's made solid, good weight in hand, the only complaints I could do it is that the zoom ring is a bit hard and not very quiet autofocus.
This is a great goal to start in photography in my opinion, it deserves at least four stars!
For more clumsy (category which I am one) I did fell a good meter high two months ago and it works just as well and has no impact marks (EOS 600D also by my happiness!).
