the Fuji S5600 is a very capable camera for its price. The only thing on your list which you might have trouble doing with this camera is the portraits.

The effect you are looking to produce with an out of focus background is achieved by using a large aperture opening to get a shallow depth of field (distance around the main focal point where things are still sharp). The problem you will encounter with this and just about any digital camera other than a full DSLR (and even there the x1.6 crop ones have more trouble than 35mm film) is that you cant get shallow enough depth of field to throw the background out of focus. This is caused because the small size of the sensor requires a short focal length lens. Short focal lengths always have more depth of field than longer focal lengths so everything ends up in focus. This is great for a P&S, not so great if youre trying to be artistic.

Saying that, the manual options will let you do this sort of thing a lot better than you can with a full auto P&S so it should make a nice stop gap until DSLR prices come down far enough or your finances improve enough to allow you to buy one.

Totally adequate and in some areas a better choice than an SLR. Range is enough to handle most things out of the box.

Ive managed to do the background out of focus on my Panasonic FZ20 but as there are other people on here who own the camera I will leave it up to them to say if its truly capable in this area.

Where these cameras do suffer is low light sporting events.

I have (or is that had since the other half prefers it to her Kodak P&S) Panasonic Fz30 that has only a few things different to the Fz20, Fz30 is 8MP and has a manual focus ring, where as the Fz20 is 5MP and the manual focus is in a menu setting IIRC.

she loves the cam and has gone from "me see, me shoot always full auto" to being able to selecting the aperture and shutter speed on manual to get DOF and a balanced sky & foreground in some quite crappy light, all on a Fz cam in about 4 months

if you can get a Fz20/30/50 or Fz3/5 for that price range I dont think you will be un happy.

the below shots show some DOF taken with a fz cam

The Fuji 5600 also has a nice support forum for it over at http://www.s5000.net/phpBB2

DOF can be an arse on a non-SLR because the sensor size is so much smaller, however it can be done... and as I am sure youll find when going through the numorous pictures on there as an example of what the camera can do, theres lots and lots of tricks available to achieve many things.

In your situation, if you really cant stretch to the Panasonic then Id go with the Fuji. As mentioned above you CAN do shallow DOF effects with these cameras, just not AS shallow as you can with a DSLR so you just need to make sure your subject is some distance in front of the background.

Ive seen some really nice shots taken with this Fuji, I dont think you will be disappointed with it for the money.

Rechargeables are great in my S5500, a set of 2000mAH ones easily last a couple of days of serious shooting

As for portraits with blurred BGs (i.e. shallow DOF), it can easily be done! Largest aperture setting, then take some paces back and zoom into you subject and boom, there we are

Examples:

Cheers all, I really appreciate all your comments on this.  Thanks Sara for posting some photies ... this is exactly what I wanted to be able to do.  I am just learning at the moment and think I am going to go and buy the Fuji - its a good enough price that if I do get really good at it quickly then I will not feel I should have bought a DSLR to begin with as the initial cost is not that expensive.  My concern was buying a Bridge camera which costs £200-300 and then realising that I should have just added an extra £100 and bought a D50.  

Thanks again, I look forward to posting some pictures  

indeed

I also predict the bottom end of DSLR pricing is about to drop again, the new Nikon D40 is unlikely to remain unchallenged as the bargain basement DSLR for long