Portable, lite, with a lot of features and awesome battery life.

Ok, first and foremost, if you intend on traveling, get a traveling battery charger. For carrying the dock will become irritable. If you have laptop, then use the memory reader there to transport the pictures to your laptop and store.
I tend to take a lot of photos while traveling or while I go out to clubs with friends.
I need a small camera with an amazing quick shot, good flash and an awesome anti-shake tech.
Before this camera I owned a Casio Z-4. This camera offered great features, but it lacked in the zoom dept, and the night long shots. At times I would go out to clubs and the long distance (+ 10 ft) picture would come out blurry due to the lack of light. Also took it to the zoo a couple of times and the digital zoom was not enough to handle the contrast and definition, leaving a pixelated shot most of the time.
The EX-Z850 eliminates a lot of those unsatisfactory hurtles. The camera itself, is very user friendly. The camera come with a lot of preset features for the non-camera savvy. It also lets the user (reg or prof. users) play with the ISO's and the Focus features. This allows for the best picture quality and the easiest and fastest way to take a picture.
It has over 30 preset features built into the camera. I, at times get lost or become undecided selecting the best preset for a picture, which is good. I've had this camera for about a month and I've yet to become dissatisfied with its performance.
I've tried the video quality and I must say, "WOW!!!" The video quality is amazing. I have all the settings at High & FINE and the definitions on the video are quite stellar. However, once you zoom in the quality is all over and you started to see noise all over the video. The video and audio sync is perfect.
I love the fact that the flash acts as a light for the video. Staying on if you need it. Something no one has noted here. I thought that was a clever touch by Casio (it can also be left on for pictures).
There's hardly any lag between pictures. I've paired this camera up with a 2gig Corsair 133x card and I've yet to experience anything that is lag like.
The camera's build is great and long lasting. My Ex-Z4 was dropped, kicked, thrown and lived through a hurricane and only scratches appeared.
It has a lot of positive.
1. A Large Screen.
2. A lot of settings.
3. A lot of preset settings.
4. Great video quality.
5. Amazing zoom. (use anti-shake for long dist. pics)
6. Metal casing.
7. Photo & video images and ease of use.
8. Battery Life. (Took over 150 pics and videos and the battery did not go down as at all.
9. Price.

Cons.
1. Everything has to be done through a docking station.
2. It only comes with an 8mb built in mem.
3. Manually changing the iso to 1600.

Overall, the docking station does not bother me as I travel with my laptop and transfer the pics/videos through my SD reader. Battery lasts over 150 pics, so I've good with that.
The manual config of the ISO is a bit of a pain in the rear end and I wish the capacity was there for the user to use it to the max. Overall, 4.5.