Complement to the comments

I take the SX1 IS now for over 6 months and have since taken about 6000 pictures. In addition to the already (partly quite old) reviews posted I would add a few things. Maybe this will help with the purchase decision also my comparison with the competition:

- Power hungry:

The SX1 IS is definitely not power hungry! With good brand batteries (I use SANYO, VARTA, PANASONIC and TEXCUS with about 2500mAh can without problems 400 and more pictures are taken. Please do not use batteries for cucumbers 3.99 in 4-pack!

- Pumping autofocus, autofocus bad:

With the firmware update to Ver. 2.0 (May) significantly (!!) was this "problem" improved. Who "snaps" in a dark room without contours, must not expect that (no matter what) correctly focused a camera, this high-contrast transitions are needed. The AF of the SX1 IS is working safely, quickly and quite accurately. It is not a DSLR with 9 cross-type sensors!

- Focus, ISO noise

- The image quality is quite satisfactory. It has also been compared with the SONY HX-1, the FZ-28 and the Sony H50 shown that the SX1IS reproduces a better sharpness of detail, as the geannten other cameras.
The SONY HX-1:
..rauscht without the much praised Twilight mode with min. ISO 125 a lot more, the noise reduction ironed Details significantly stronger. Nice features: The Panorama mode, in which a panoramic image is generated automatically when panning the camera.
The Twighlight mode is not suitable for moving subjects (6 images in ~ 1 second) and a strong tendency to underexposure.
For me the biggest drawback: No RAW format.
Also special batteries and non-compliant storage media for me a clear no-go for the Sony.

FZ-28:
Not bad, very little luminance and color noise,
but again very strong smoothing of details, even at ISO 200th
Haptic matter of taste, to me easily. Cheap seemingly Plastikbomber,
However, good lens, low distortion, low aberrations, but tendency to artifact formation in ISO> 200th RAW format. Special battery.
Good "out of cam" results.

SONY H50:
Similar to the HX-1, slightly worse in the detail reproduction.

Fuji S100FS:
Very heavy (1kg), excellent image quality, but very strong tendency to chromatic aberration, insbs. purple fringing. Strong distortion in WW, jerky sound with video. High detail sharpness, low noise. Haptic not succeed, focus ring poorly accessible.

CANON SX1IS: Very good video and audio quality, best feel, compared to the other best (except S100FS) image quality. Optimum focus, E-TTL hotshoe. Very good image stabilizer, slight distortion in the WW area, chromatic aberration tendency to (purple fringing) in bright transitions (less than the S100FS, more than the others). Display well, electric. Viewfinder mediocre, but to use it.

Tips on using the SX1IS:

-Practice, Practice, practice!
Use -RAW format! Overexposure can be better corrected.
- Fade Out. Fade 1 EV - When shooting subjects with strong contrasts quiet times -0.33. Later brightening with software is much easier to correct than in ausgefressen initially bright transitions.