one of the few digicams on the market with an ultrazoom lens ( x10 ) and a pretty affordable price tag
I currently have a sony DCS P1 - which i have had for ages now 
and have shortlisted a few potential models - one of which i will eventually buy
Can anyone share firsthand experience with the olympus ultrazoom series ???
hskhan here has played with Olympus.. maybe he can tell you his experiences.. I have looked at them with interest but they lack a feature here and there essential to me so never ended up buying one.
I have Olympus C-700 Ultra Zoom. Its 2.2MP and 8x optical zoom. And I believe it gives really fantastic results. The flash works for 15' which is really great, bcz all that zoom will be wasted if the light doesn't support you and the pics come out really well even in low light conditions. Ofcourse, using the cam in daylight results in excellent pics as well.
The camera has a bunch of manual controls. It also takes brief 15 sec movies with sound.
I had uploaded some pics here, after resizing them to 640x480. I'll put the URL here, so you can see the results.
All in all, its an excellent camera.
tx faisal
i am going for C740 - thats 4 mega pixel and x10 zoom
The C-740 is a beauty.
I actually love all Olympus products except their new entry level products. If you loved your Sony's performace back in the day, be prepared to be blown away by the 740's output. Not only does it have amazing picture quality, but as you stated is comes packed with a 10x optical zoom - a heavenly extra. The battery life is also quite extensive compared to Sony.
Fear not, it's an awesome choice - enjoy your new baby.
(BTW The 740 is a 3MP. Not 4, as you stated.)