A95 or A520

[etaf]

we are thinking about getting a digital camera for my wife, she currently has a 35mm compact samsung vega 140s which has a great lens and a focal range of 38mm-140mm along with various controls for fill flash, auto, sports, portrait settings.

shes very happy with the camera, but we have been talking about getting a Hi-Touch 730PS printer which has 6x4 7x5 & 8x6 format prints which can be printed straight from the card. {any views on this also welcome}

{I have a canon Pro1 and a Nikon film Scanner - so will also be using the printer but as i shoot RAW all the time it will be via a PC and photoshop}

Apart from going out and handling the camera - which would be my No1 priority before buying, we thought the A95 and A520 look quite good

A520 because it has the same zoom range
A95 as it uses CF - we could use my imagetank for storing any images whilst out and about, although on holidays she only usually gets through 2 or 3 films {108 images}, so i guess a 512MB card would give her about >200 images at top quality, although she will possibly shoot more.

the 4MB A520 will just about manage 8x6 - although most of the prints she gets via the 35mm are only ever printed at 6"x4".

anyones views on quality, ease of use, disadvantages or other alternatives

[rcrobert]

Just picked up a A520 about a week ago. Thought about the A95 first as well. Finally picked the A520. It is a bit smaller, a bit lighter, and uses 2 AA batteries instead of 4. Other than that, seemed like the two cameras were very similar.

I am pleased with my choice. It is a very nice camera. Image quality if very good. Plenty of features for when you don't want to point and shoot. I got the 512MB card and it holds plenty of images. I have the Epson P-2000 for portable storage so I can use the SD/MMC card in that as well -- but if it hadn't I might have gone for the A95 with its CF for compatibility.

I got this for when I don't want to carry my EOS 10D around. Pretty handy. Hope this helps some!