You will have also the option to take pictures at full res, and if you look at the second link in my previous post, the turn out surprisingly good (at least in those bright conditions), even at 100% magnification. You see some grain, but almost no noise reduction or sharpening artifacts (take a look at the hair on the arms and legs of the climbers). Lens seems to be quite sharp also. I guess it looks a bit different in low light, but then you can lower resolution to average out noise.

The main point however is that it gives you a digital, but lossless zoom at lower resolutions, around 3x at 5Mpx, 4x at 1080p, 6x at 720p, 12x at nHD.