I want to go a little bit further then how the camera feels in a persons hands. If a person is stepping up to a DSLR from a little P&S it is likely that any DSLR will feel foreign in this persons hands and as far as the controls being intuitive, I don't really know how a new DSLR user is supposed to be aware of this after having everything automated before the switch. I personally have always ordered my DSLR cameras sight unseen based on the cameras features and I have never had any trouble adapting to whatever size the camera body was. I held a friends Canon XTI and it seemed very small to me but I was able to work everything on it and it probably would have felt normal after a while. By the same token pro photographer Laurie Excel has smallish hands and shoots the big Nikon professional bodies. My experience with brick and mortar camera stores has been sales people that didn't seem to know as much as I did and would say and do anything to make a sale. Sometimes camera companies have promos with incentives for the store to sell their cameras. So, what am I driving at here. I think that if possible the buyer should bring a person along that has DSLR knowledge. Not necessarily somene who is a fan of Nikon or Canon but someone who can explain exactly what " feeling good in your hands" is and "intuitive controls is supposed to mean
Howdy:
I never buy a camera for how it's feel but for what it does.
The feeling to me is like a new shoe will get there as i use it.
But what it does have to be there from day one.
So to me the must important thing is what I need to do and how the camera will contribute to help me do it. An example of this is the 2-1/4 format cameras like Rollei and Hasseblads they are really bulkie and funny to handle ( like a box) for many people but to me are like part of my hand. Hope this ilustrate my point.
So what she need to ask her self is... what she want to do with the camera or what kind of photography she would like to do. Then look for the camera that will get her there.
Just my two centavos.