That's not my experience with the 8080. Purple fringing is quite low and
noise low enough, if you shoot al lowest ISO (which is the ISO at which
a camera with a 2/3" should be operated).

Rick said:

'Bottom line'?  Anyone who uses 'bottom line' as their introduction,
and then offers generalisations such as those above, should maybe get
out more - or at least offer some explanation and justification.

The Oly 8080 has very little problem with any purple fringing - it has
*never* been obvious in any of my prints, and I often push it to 13"
x19" if the image justifies it.  Just look for yourselves at the image
samples at dpreview and other places, and also check for comparisons
that show the 8080's ZOOM against DSLR's *prime* lenses, eg here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos20d/page27.asp

Can you point to the purple fringing?  Perhaps Rick has only seen the
Sony and Nikon 8Mp efforts..

What little fringing there *is*, is demonstrated here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympusc8080wz/page16.asp

and in their summary of the lens/sensor performance it doesn't even
rate a mention, amongst these comments "Great lens...mature image
processing...good color balance...all amounts to a very good
performance from the C-8080. In this case the lens really has made the
camera...Thanks to smart noise reduction the C-8080 also keeps noise at
higher sensitivities in check...something not all eight megapixel
digital cameras can achieve... had no major complaints about the
C-8080's image quality and found no specific issues which needed
further analysis...."

Also look here - compared to Canon DSLRs fitted with 50/1.4 prime
lens....

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos20d/page26.asp

Here, dpreview also says "It's not as silky smooth as the EOS 20D
(despite being set to ISO 50) but it's certainly not noisy."  For me,
who shoots almost everything at ISO50 and has little use for higher
ISO's, noise is not an issue, but I don't claim to be everyone.  IF
your style involves low-light shooting, then yes, the noise at ISOs
over 100 may be an issue.  Purple fringing is definitely NOT *horrid*
with the 8080 - in fact the Nikon and Canon DSLR kit lenses are far,
far worse in this regard.

The 8080 isn't the greatest camera ever built, but it has some very
good points.  I don't particularly like it's menu operation, and there
are other annoyances - like poor battery-life indication and the silly
way it changes the display from EVF to LCD when you least want it..

But purple fringing?  Nope.
Noise problems?  Yes, *could* be an issue if you shoot low-light and
print large.  But is the Canon better in either area?  No, it has worse
(yes Rick, *worse!*) purple fringing despite only being a 5Mp, and the
noise at ISO400 looks very similar to me.  And of course you are
comparing a 5Mp with an 8Mp, so the Oly will outresolve it by a
comfortable margin and give more 'headroom' for effective noise
reduction..  But if you never print beyond 11x8, that might be a moot
point.

That's *my* bottom line.

Of course it is, most of them are. But the question is, is it better than
the Olympus, and whether you know any answers to that comparison.