I have the Cannon A60 that I got in a package deal on Ebay. I LOVE IT. Probably for the price range your looking at you can afforde the A70. The camera is easy to use and has a bunch of nice features. I'm planning on getting the wide angle lenz adapter for it soon. Here's an example of a cool feature...it has a stitch mode that lets you take a panoramic of up to 360 degrees...than puts all the pics together via software
IMO its a great camera and I'd give anyone looking for one a good recomendation
PS about the batteries I have yet to run down my rechargables...and I've used it quite a bit