Digital Cameras - Am I a Pro or just a plain old Con?

Over the past few team meetings when we go through all the events for the next few months, I keep mentioning that I am going to Australia with my girlfriend for a glorious 3 weeks and won't be around all of December. It will be my first break longer than a week from work (or university...or school for that matter) in 8 years...crazy!

It is going to be such an amazing experience - we're doing City, Rock and Reef...Sydney, Ayres Rock/Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef. It will be my first trip to Oz and my g/f's second and probably our last for a long time, unless we fall in love with the place and want to move there (god bless Microsoft and it's worldwide field ;-)). As you can imagine I want to get some really good photographs of our trip out there and display them in hi-fidelity on my Windows XP/Vista Media Centre PC in the living room to show all our friends and family back home.

But I am in a bit of a muddle over what I should buy (as my trusty Canon Ixus 400 is getting a little tired and conked out due to the humidity at the Taj Mahal in India during the summer) - should I go all out and pick up a Prosumer type Digital SLR with lots of nobs and dials for creating the perfect shot. Or do I stick to tried and tested for dummies and get an up to date 10 mega-pixel point-and-shoot? The current contenders are:

The new Canon EOS 400D (looks good on paper):

OR the Casio Exilim Zoom 1000 (played with a colleague's slightly older model and has some really neat features):

My current thinking is that I could probably master the very basics of a D-SLR before going out but don't really think I will spend hours afterwards in Digital Image Suite or Photoshop tweaking it. Which is the reason why I am doubting the purchase and think I could save myself £300 and get a point and shoot which will do more or less as good a job.

Just in case anyone out there is reading (my boss for instance, who is a whizz with a camera - he still hasn't given me the photos from our Japan trip he promised ;-)) - will a D-SLR produce noticeably better pictures with a standard single lens and an amateur like me at the helm?? Any advice or links to interesting material would be much appreciated!

And to whet my appetite (and yours) check out the FlickR Australia Travel Pool here

tags: digital photography