Fujifilm F20 compact camera review

I own the Fujifilm F20 and one of its big brothers, the Fujifilm S6500, which is usually described as a "SLR-like" digital camera. Both are now no longer in production, but the whole series of Fujifilm F20, F30, F31, and the S6500 were renowned for their class-leading light sensitivity. These cameras are now selling for hundreds of dolllars more than when they were new, so great is their appeal. The sensor chips are identical on all of these cameras which is to say that they are 1/1.6 in size, which is larger than most sensors on cameras of this class. and 6.3 megapixels. The F20 has a 3x lens, which is a bit limiting, and no image stabilization, which they tried to cover for with what they called "picture stabilization", which was nothing more than the ability to automatically go to a high ISO setting such as 3200, which at that time was nonexistent on non-DSLRs. I found the whole "picture stabilization" campaign to be rather tacky, what I usually refer to "evil marketing". (I am in marketing myself, but I try not to be evil).
But these cameras were, and probably still are, among the lowest-noise compact digital cameras due to the proprietary Fujifilm sensor, which used octaganal photosites which allowed more and larger receptors to be fit into the usual space inside the camera, which inherently led to superior low-light performance, better dynamic range and probably some other stuff as well.
This shot was taken with the F20 at night on Chicago's Michigan Avenue at ISO800, and although I've rezzed it down for publishing here, even on the full sized image the noise is barely noticable, which is pretty amazing from such a small camera.

It doesn't sound like Fujifilm has reproduced the splash they made with this series of cameras, and many wish the camera industry would go back to some of the basics that Fujifilm did so well at one time.