Why buy a DSL digital camera vs. normal digital camera?

I am looking into buying the Oylmpus E-Volt 500 DSL digital camera and also looking at a Panasonic DMC-FZ50K 10.1MP with 12x optical zoom. I am looking for a camera that I can zoom in but I don't know what all that pixel information means. Why buy a DSL when the zoom on another camera seems to be the same?

If you "don't want to know," maybe the Panasonic is a good choice for you. In case you want to know a little, though, the sensor on the Olympus Evolt 500 is almost 6 times bigger than the Panasonic. The Panasonic sensor is really packed with almost 8 time the density of pixels per square millimeter. This means that, even though there are 10 million of them, they are TINY compared to the Evolt. This generally translates into lower image quality.

Of course, you get what you pay for. The Evolt is almost $100 more and you still have to buy at least one lens. Personally, I'd look into the Nikon SLR line before buying Olympus, but that is just my opinion. You're trying to decide about making the leap up to a DSLR.... I really like Yahoo Tech section- check comparisons there- they have CNN and consumer reports but also- and this is more important to me- user reviews and comments.... are you talking about the DSLR camera? That just means you can interchange the lenses of the camera, very helpful for a wide variety of shots. I personally despise the point-and-shoot models, but perhaps you can live with them. For just general family and vacation snaps, any high quality point & shoot would be fine. Many do have limitations, such as low light performance and shutter lag.