If you're looking for the best image quality you can get in a pocket-sized camera, look no further than the 10-megapixel Canon PowerShot S95 ($399.99 direct). With the largest image sensor you'll find in a compact camera, and a brighter-than-most lens, this small shooter delivers beautiful shots in most lighting conditions, without a flash. If you're open to spending a little more and carrying a slightly larger camera, the Sony Alpha NEX-3 ($549.99, 4.5 stars) can be found for $500 these days, and it packs a much larger D-SLR-sized image sensor that will deliver much sharper photos than the S95 can produce. But if you absolutely need something that will fit in your pocket, the S95 is the best you can get, making it our Editors' Choice for high-end pocket cameras. Design Very unassuming looking, the squarish S95 is matte black (think laptop finish), and at 2.3 by 3.9 by 1.2 inches (HWD), it's toward the top of the compact camera size spectrum. The camera's body is loaded with scroll wheels, which makes the shooting experience feel almost D-SLR-like. One ring sits around the base of the lens where it meets the body, and another is to the right of the LCD—it makes for a nice, two-handed manual shooting experience. The rings can be assigned to control aperture and shutter speed, or they can be reprogrammed to control a number of other functions (ISO sensitivity, exposure, focus, etc.). You also have the option to shoot in fully automatic mode with face detection. The 3-inch LCD on the back of the camera is stellar. The average 3-inch camera display is made up of 230,000 dots; the S95 doubles that to 460,000, so images on the screen are incredibly crisp and sharp. The LCD shows virtually no motion blur, and offers great contrast with dark blacks. Using it as both a viewfinder and for image playback was a pleasure. There's a pop up flash up top. The lens is the biggest draw here, with a focal range of 28-105mm (35mm equivalent), it offers just 3.75x optical zoom. But this lens isn't about zoom—it's about light. In its wide-angle position (28mm), the aperture can open all the way to f/2, so it lets in a lot of light, which is key for shooting in low light without a flash. The bright f/2 lens is paired with an image sensor that's very large for a compact camera. A few compact Panasonic cameras, like the Lumix DMC-FX700 ($399.95, 4 stars), have nearly-as-bright f/2.2 lenses, but the FX700's image sensor (roughly 25mm2) is less than half the size of the S95's. 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Those are all good speed scores for a compact camera, but they're nowhere near a Micro Four Thirds camera like the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2 ($699.95, 4 stars), or the Sony NEX-3. These cameras' shutter lag clocks in closer to 0.10 seconds, and they can shoot at 2.40 and 2.30 frames per second (respectively). In the PC Labs we use Imatest to collect object information about image quality. In terms of sharpness, the Canon S95 delivered a center-weighted average of 1,858 lines per picture height, which is a good result. The Panasonic FX700 offers a competitive 1,817 lines, but with image noise, the S95's larger sensor really stood out. All the way up to ISO 1600, the S95 keeps image noise under 1.5 percent (the acceptability threshold). Even pics taken at ISO 3200 weren't horrible, though they fell short of Imatest's mark. (The FX700 only produced useable images up to ISO 400 in our tests.) The S95 is an excellent low-light shooter, and will work in most situations without a flash. Still, though, it's important to note that D-SLRs will produce sharper images with less noise at any ISO sensitivity. Video recordings captured in 720p30 HD look similarly great. The files are written as .MOV, so you can upload them right into YouTube and Facebook. Canon is a bit behind its competitors in recording options, though: the Panasonic FX700 allows recording in multiple resolutions (up to 1080i) and with different codecs (like AVCHD for less compression and higher quality). Connectivity options on the S95 are top-notch. There's a universal mini-USB port for connecting to your computer and a standard mini-HDMI port for plugging the camera right into an HDTV for HD image and video playback. The camera writes photos and videos to SDXC and SDHC cards. Canon's PowerShot S95 reaches the current upper limit of image quality in pocket-sized digital cameras—that's why it wins our Editors' Choice for the category. This little guy packs a sweet LCD, great controls, a big image sensor, a bright lens, and it pumps out stellar-looking photos—but at $400, it's not cheap. And keep in mind, we're entering a digital imaging revolution. Breakthroughs in high-speed small processors enable compact interchangeable lens cameras like the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2 and the Sony Alpha NEX-3 use much larger image sensors, which can deliver quality and speed that's leaps and bounds above what you'll get with the S95.