My mom asked a professional photographer about brands when she was buying my digicam and he said he recommends canon no matter what kind of camera it is.
Also, from personal experience they are GREAT with replacements. My dad once dropped a 35mm canon camera we had in salt water (needless to say it stopped working) we went back to them and said "This doesn't work anymore" (head office) and they replaced it for free. Also, when our first canon video camera died they gave us a bunch of money towards a new canon camera and all we had to do was give back the camera, we go to keep the case, the batteries and everything (the first camera was pretty old).
Just my personal experience.