Fujifilm Finepix S9600

Christmas is fast approaching, I mean really really fast, I haven't even noticed time pass by that much.  And with the nearing season, I'd just like to give myself some useful reward after all these years of longing.  I have never given myself some gifts as of this writing yet.  I'm that mini Santa Claus I presume, buying stuff for each and everyone in this household and seldom receiving any.  ^_^

And so just late this year I decided to buy myself something meaningful.  Something I have been wanting to buy even before I started with my freelance career.  I've been eagerly searching the internet for possible options, prices, etc. and even looked over at several shops here and found them to be very expensive.  What I would like to buy myself is a Digital SLR Camera.  That would indeed be a very rewarding piece of gadget for me.  It is actually a need more than a like I suppose. And with no luck on searching, I found most if not some to be very expensive and beyond my current budget.  But just recently, my sister's friend offered to have her buy me one and I'd just be sending the money for it.  The camera I have chosen isn't in a sense a DSLR Camera, but feature-wise, it performs like one, and it's a good deciding phase before buying an actual DSLR.

Here's the camera I've been wanting to buy, it's a Fujifilm Finepix S9600.  My dad and I already planned on buying this baby before Christmas hits.  I'm crossing my fingers 'till then.  The feature I love most about it is the manual adjustment of the zoom, not unlike the other digital cameras I've tried before where digital zooming is a real pain in the ass, though for some it might seem a great feature but sad to say, I just don't like it.  I'd love to have more control over my shots.  And one more thing is the battery which would be a handy AAA and not the packed battery ones you commonly see on most digital cameras. 

Here's an overview of the camera model > http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/s/finepix_s9600/index.html.  What do you think about it? I'm really taking in suggestions right now.  My other option would be a Canon Alpha A200.  But I'm planning on using the excess price on it to buy other gifts (for others).

And please, if you have any other thoughts on similar and cheaper digital cameras, please let me know.  The features I'm interested is the manual focusing/zooming and the battery pack.  Anything beyond that would be just a matter of manufacturer-biased set of features I guess.

If there's anything I could have availed by then, I'm really looking forward on writing a review.  ^^