Interesting in buying a S3: Need some perspective!!

Hi folks. Here's my situation. I've owned a Canon sd 700 IS for a bit over a year now and have been very pleased with it's performance and image quality. The 700 was my first real digital camera and over the past year I've learned a lot and would like to take the next step. I'm not ready to take the DSLR plunge and after a lot of research I've concluded that an ultrazoom would be right up my alley. I initially looked at the S5, but as I've done more and more research, I think the S3 would be a better fit.

Now with all of that out the way, here's my concern. On paper and based on the reviews, it appears that the S3 is a stellar camera, but for all the sample images that I've seen, I am less than impressed. There seems to be little sharpness in the pictures and the CA and color fringing leaves a lot to be desired. I took a look at the image pools for my SD 700 and then compared them to the images for the S3 and in my opinion, the SD700 blows the S3 away.

I want to like this camera, but don't know if there's something that I'm missing. Any perspective/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I had an S3 for 6 months and it peformed exceptionally well...It was really my first real digital camera, (My actual first was an old Sony DSC-somethingorother that recorded to mini-cd's) and I got the S3 mainly for the super-zoom. The S3/S5 overall seem to be on top of their game in the ultrazoom market. There are other cameras that offer better individual features, but as an overall package and use, the S3/S5 is the more desirable camera. One of the things that pushes it over the edge is the class-leading video quality with stereo sound. As well as the flip/fold LCD, that, once you've lived with it, you'll never want to do without it again.
In high-contrast scenes, there are some CA and fringing, but not significantly more than other brands of ultra zooms.
Another thing that pushes the S3 over the edge is the fact that there are so many possiblities with the latest CHDK firmware hacks, you can have a camera with 65second exposures, motion-detected shutter release, script execution, un-capped video limits, RAW mode (a big Plus), and more. I dont' know what images you were looking at, but I've seen some amazing photos taken with the S3 that will hold their own with DSLR's.
Granted if you go pixel-peeping you're going to see more noise and CA than a DSLR, but with such a small sensor, only so much is possible.
I sold my S3 (begrudgingly) to get an S5 and it should be here by Friday. I'll look up some links to some of the photo's I mentioned and post them.

Here is one of my favorites that I know from S5users.com
He really makes the S3 live up to its potential.
http://www.flickr.com/​photos/mateob/
There are others but he is one of my favs.

I just got an S3 in October. I'm a newbie to much of digital photography, but have managed some pretty good shots and have been impressed with the camera. I found a lot of really good consumer images on Amazon.com when I was looking into getting the S3. Here's a link...
http://www.amazon.com …iu_pdp_images_a​ll#gallery

Here's my latest gallery. Pictures before August 22nd are from my S3. Those after that date are from a DSLR. I used Canon 1.5x teleconverter or 500D close up on most of the S3 shots: http://mike.photos.gb.​net/c1419649_1.html