Allan, I wouldn't be suprised to reveal Canon's OIS would be better in comparable cameras.
Canon's OIS technology is actually the most advanced among others and this is well known fact.

Regards, Alex

Warren only 150 of 212 pages of the Jap manual are relevant to the cam itself. The rest explains the software package contained in the supplied CD-R, which you basically don't need (except for the basic drivers which you can install manually), because they are in Japanese and won't work properly with PCs running on English OS.

Between the Jap and English manual, yeah, there are more info contained in the Jap version..including how to clean that sensitive surface at the back of the LCD...some of them are rather trivial though.