[Al @ Feb 22nd 2007 11:19AM]

RAW requires much more processing power which costs money and most people after a pocket camera don't need it so the manufacturers don't make it. Pocket cameras have small sensors and as people want their megapixels each pixel is very small which makes them noisy. You can't have both with current technology.

RAW is also generally wasted for the average snappers that buy cheap compacts.

The technology will get there I'm sure but it'll take time. In the meantime DSLR's will always have the advantage of large sensors, low noise and decent optics.

[dunk @ Feb 22nd 2007 1:28PM]

i have to dispute the claim that RAW requires more processing, it might take more time to write to the memory storage device and thus slow down shooting. as i understand it the actual processing of the image happens at the computer level with RAW whereas JPEG has to do in camera compression. most cameras shoot straight pixel data on the sensor and then have to convert that to JPEG, whereas a RAW image just writes the 1-to-1 pixel data and camera settings to the card offloading the processing to your computer the JPEG workflow surely has to take more processing power.