When I worked on Fujifilm's digital cameras (and Ricoh and Sony earlier), pixel count was king -- the more megapixels the better. It was sort of an arms race, but with a much less world-threatening outcome. Another rating system was the tried-and-true star system -- you know, five is great, one is awful, in between is in between ...

Can' t we do any better and get some kind of guide that would be much more detailed so that camera buyers would know what they're getting for the money?

Well, you can always count on John Dvorak of PC Magazine for coming up with a good idea. He has devised a 100-point digital camera rating scale, with all cameras starting with 100 points; points would then be deducted based on certain features (or lack of). The resulting number would be much like school grades: 90 or above equals an A; 80-89 equals at B, etc. However, unlike school, the worst possible grade would be a 50.

He runs through two examples: Konica Minolta's DiMage X50 and Fujifilm's FinePix E900. (That's the FinePix E900 below.)

If this sounds like something that makes sense to you, check out www.PCMag.com for "A 100-Point System for Camera Evaluation."

And let John know we sent you ...