I have a Canon PowerShot pocket camera. I’m not a fancy photographer, but it works for me. I saw mention of a way to load a firmware addition in the camera that opens up all kinds of new features. This works on lots of different Canon models. Take a look at the features to see if they are interesting.
The net is that you download a file, unzip it to your SD card, put the card in the camera, press a special button sequence, and there it is. If you don’t like it, just power cycle your camera and don’t do the special button sequence, as it needs to be loaded each time. I think this is pretty cool. Just having a decent battery meter is a big help.
It’s called CHDK, and it’s free. Take a look if you have a Canon camera.