As well as being compared against other ultra compacts, the Nikon Coolpix S50 is also often compared to travel zooms. The Nikon Coolpix S50's top rivals come from Samsung (such as the Digimax i5) and Panasonic (such as the Lumix ZS25)
Generally, some of the advantages of the Nikon S50 compared to other ultra compact competitors include: it has a significantly larger screen (3" vs 2.5") and has better image stabilization (lens vs none).
However, on average it doesn't have a touch screen, is older (february 2007 vs june 2009) and is thicker (0.9" vs 0.7").
Generally, some of the advantages of the Nikon S50 compared to travel zoom competitors include: it is much smaller (ultra compact (88×51×22 mm) vs compact (105×59×28 mm)), is thinner (0.9" vs 1.1"), is slightly lighter (165 g vs 193 g) and is slightly less expensive ($239.99 vs $429.90).
However, on average it has slightly less zoom (3x vs 20x), has a much narrower wide angle lens (38 mm vs 24 mm), has a slightly lower resolution screen (230k dots vs 460k dots), takes slightly lower resolution photos (7.1 MP vs 9.7 MP) and has a CCD-family sensor (CCD vs CMOS).
