Panasonic Lumix TZ4 balanced compact superzoom

Author's Rating:

Pros: 10-15X Zoom, True wide photos, zooming works for movies, compact size, quality

Cons: Low light performance, slow focusing, lack of manual controls

The Bottom Line: 
A good overall camera with a superb lens and built to last.  

Author's Review
Replaced the TZ3 with this camera after a very good experience with the TZ3.  Due to the higher price of the TZ5 opted for the TZ4 and believe i did not loose out on much.
The camera is very portable, though its not really a pocket friendly camera, but fits in perfect if you are wearing a denim.
Missed the larger screen that was there with the TZ3, as the 2.5" screen can be a bit small to one's liking, and its performance in bright sunlight is not that great.  It also has a tendency to show a purple vertical line when shooting in bright sun.
The Intelligent Auto mode is pretty good, and is far better an option for most uses than using the screen modes or the limited manual mode.  However the autofocus in auto mode is very slow even after the firmware upgrade, and can be very irritating when you miss the moment due to the delay.  The work around is to select "Sport" mode, but here the flash is disabled and is not ideal for indoor use.
The pictures taken in daylight is superb, and is further enriched by the wide screen optics that makes it an ideal trip camera.  Pictures of people in groups come out well, but when the number of people increase the faces get distorted.  Landscapes and buildings come out superb, though the color reproduction is somewhat not natural (very noticeable when you take sunset/sunrise shots).
The biggest issues is that the indoor photos are not that great, specially in low light conditions. The flash can be overpowering for close proximity shots, but does a fair job for group photos.  However indoor shots in low light without the flash are very grainy.
The superb zoom of 10X (extended to 15.9X when set to 3 mega pixel) is very useful and helps you takes some great photos.  However the focus at maximum zoom is a bit slow and you need to plan your shots.  A tripod is recommended as even with the great optical stabilization, its hard to keep the camera steady when shooting at full zoom.
The issue with indoor performance impacts the movie mode badly, as the videos even with decent light are dark and lacking in detail.  However videos taken in daylight are pretty decent for a digital camera and is more than enough to share with friends and family :)  However VGA or WVGA seems to be a bit small compared to the current cameras :(  The ability to zoom while recording video is an asset, and is something you want in a camera once you use it.  The zoom is rather slow in video mode to reduce the noise from the mechanics. The audio quality of recordings is rather poor and limited to mono.
One more feature i really missed over the TZ3 was the ability to use the single click context menu and change from normal to wide screen.  With the TZ4 (and the TZ5) you have to select the menu option and navigate to change the form factor.
Overall its a decent buy with good quality photos in most cases, and the true wide screen optics makes it a wonderful trip camera.  Add the superzoom it makes the camera truly useful for trips to get pictures and videos of items far away.