Rating: 
Summary: great camera, even today
Review: I bought this camera in early 2003 when the camera was to be discontinued and sold around $400. I am mostly a happy user of this camera.
Pros:
1. Excellent lens, very bright (F2.0) which make shooting indoor without flash a possiblity.
2. Good resolution. 4MP is enough even today.
3. Great photography control, more F stops, great range of shutter speed which you won't see in most consumer level digital cameras. This means you can shoot a wide range of objects under many different environment, without compromised quality.
4. Better looking than successors like G3, G5.
Cons:
1. Relatively lousy battery life using the bundled battery
2. Slow startup time. This sometimes becomes intolerable when you want a fast shot.
3. Hard to get CF card out of the camera.
4. ISO 400 speed gives noisy image quality. However this is the issue with most consumer digital cameras.
Rating: 
Summary: Generally nice but needs patience
Review: In general this is a very nice camera with lots of goodies and quite foolproof for even a beginner. Lots of functions, good optics and high resolution, all give it high marks.
On the downside, the camera has a serious speed problem. If you're used to the typical 35mm SLR, this is not the camera for you. The time it requires to focus (a couple of seconds!?) as well as the time it takes it to 'save' (probably about 5-10 seconds with the color monitor open) an image and ready itself for the next one all but guarantee lack spontaneity in picture taking. A moving toddler, a pet, virtually any unstaged snapshot are usually ruined due to the camera's slow reaction time.
The software that accompanies the camera has goods and bads as well. While it offers all the capabilities one would want, it is cumbersome and immature as a product - or rather a medley of products thrown together and forced to talk to each other. Yes, you can adjust nearly any parameter you might want, touch up pictures, make photo albums, etc. But try just clicking on the print button to print one single picture out - it is infuriating. Page after page of dialogs, repetitively asking for the same information, often in uncomprehensible ways. At the end, that single 4x6 picture you wanted printed on a 4x6 paper ends up in the wrong orientation, parts of a head cut off and parts of the paper left white. Ouch!
Rating:
Summary: Great for landscapes, not so great for pets and such
Review: The Canon G2 gives amazing color. Get a good canon printer like the i950 and you'll get amazing prints. It does black and white very well and gives great bright colors in landscape photos. My only real complaint is it's super slow. I upgraded from the Toshiba M4 2.1 megapixel camera and I honestly wish that I'd kept it too. The Toshiba, while three years older than the canon caught better candid shots. I find that when using my Canon I cannot capture good candids of people or animals, it's so slow that the subject moves before it records the scene. Super slow. It hesitates all of the time and the red eye flash alerts your subject that you are there, totally ruining the picture. I'm either looking at buying a Canon 10D or buying back my old M4 for now.
Rating:
Summary: What a camera!
Review: I like my Canon G2's "stealth mode." Its f/2 lens shoots in low light without a flash. Other digital cameras have an f/2.8 lens, requiring twice the light. Plus the viewscreen flips out and rotates. I can put the camera on the floor, against a wall, on a glass on a table, etc. allowing me to shoot at slow shutter speeds without a tripod. And because I'm not holding the camera to my eye, subjects don't realize I'm shooting pictures. Lastly, the camera is completely silent. Candid shots vs. posed pictures look completely different. Posed, people make faces, stick out their tongues, etc. Or they refuse to let me take pictures. In contrast, in candid shots people look natural.Then after I take the pictures, everyone wants to look at the pictures. This makes you popular at parties. Even the people who said they hate pictures of themselves want to look through the shots, and they love the pictures! I feel like saying, "Duh, if you stick out your tongue and scrunch up your face when you pose for a photo, you'll hate the pictures of yourself!" After using the Canon G2 you become aware of how obtrusive other cameras are: flashes going off, the loud snap of a 35mm camera, etc. I also like the video mode. It takes pretty good 30-second videos, with sound. And, again, people don't react the way they react to someone shoving a video camcorder in their face. They ignore the little camcorder, and then are delighted to watch the video. I like the "continuous" or "motor drive" mode, which takes up to 2.5 frames per second. For sports this is essential. For portraits it's useful: you tell the subject to smile, and you get a dozen shots to pick from, of every stage of the smile. The "macro" mode makes close-ups of little things easy. I also like that shooting hundreds of photos is free! The battery has never run out, and recharges quickly. But my 256MB card is too small. I'm upgrading to a 1GB card. As you learn to use this camera, you'll find yourself shooting far more pictures than you did with other cameras. I've used my G2 heavily for almost a year, and it has never broken down. My complaints about the G2: - The "AUTO" and "P" modes should not be used. These set the shutter speed at 1/640th of a second. This is much faster than is necessary, diminishing your depth of field, using the flash unnecessarily, etc. Instead, I taped a reminder to the back of my camera, saying to use aperture priority at f/2 and 400 ISO in very low light, aperture priority at f/2 and ISO "AUTO" (50 to 100) in low light, shutter priority at 1/125 and ISO "AUTO" in medium light; and aperture priority at f/8 and ISO 50 in bright light. - The "auto" white balance should also be avoided. It often looks bad, often very bad. The manual settings (sunlight, tungsten, etc.) are easy to use and look great. I never need to use the manual white balance. - Using autofocus and autoexposure result in a half-second lag between pressing the shutter release and taking the picture. You can get around this by using the "continuous" mode, or using manual settings. - The G2's 34-104mm lens is adequate for 95% of my shooting, but there are times I've wanted a longer telephoto lens. - 4 megapixels isn't as good as a pro 35mm camera. For 95% of my shooting it's adequate, but sometimes I wish I had 5 or 6 megapixels. - 400 ISO is adequate for 95% of my shooting, but sometimes I've wanted more film speed. All in all, the G2 does 95% of what the "pro" cameras do, and does lots of things the pro cameras don't do -- such as not being obtrusive, or too heavy to carry around. Weighing these pros and cons, I'd take my G2 over the "pro" SLRs.
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Thomas David Kehoe, author of "Hearts and Minds: How Our Brains Are Hardwired for Relationships"
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