Newbie Zoom question

I'm about to buy my first digital camera, having had a manual SLR for many years. I've just about settled upon a Canon Ixus 60 (I live in the UK). I tried it in a shop and it seems great, but there's one thing that's bugging me - the zoom seemed very jerky - even a tiny push on the zoom ring changed the zoom by a relatively large amount.. Now I know that digital cameras don't have smooth zooms, and that they are 'stepped', but I've tried other people's cameras and they were much easier to use, with smaller 'steps'.

My basic question is: is there a way to adjust the sensitivity of the zoom ring, or will I just have to put up with only having a small number of different zoom levels.

Control of zoom is very important. Many compacts are difficult to control. I've found some are hyperactive and others are like watching paint dry. I'm not familiar with the Ixus 60 perhaps you should look at some of the other Canon models (or even non-Canon) to see if they handle better for you.

In that perspective I'm really happy with the 2-speed zoom on S2. Jerking doesn't seem to be a problem with it. Even if S2/S3 is not the type of camera you're looking for, there might be a chance that some other Canon models could have similar zoom, too.

With cameras like the S2, the zoom has to be fast. It has a very long zoom capability, and since the user probably doesn't want to wait several seconds for it to zoom to full 12x, it needs to move pretty fast. I was surprised at the zoom speed on my S2 at first, but after you use it for a while, you'll get used to the sensitivity of the zoom lever and be able to zoom the lens at the proper speed all the time.