Digital Photography : Canon Digital Rebel
When I bought it in January 2004, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel (branded as "300D" in Europe) was Canon's only entry-level digital SLR. At the time, it retailed for $1000, and mine came with the 18-55 kit lens. Since the 6 Megapixel sensor has a 1.6x FOV crop, this enables photographs ranging from a fairly wide 29mm (35mm equivalent) to an average 88m tele.
Needless to say, the Digital Rebel won over my older point&shoot cameras in all aspects except zoom reach and portability. Its pictures are virtually noise-free even at higher ISO sensitivities and with a decent lens the sharpness is in a different league altogether. Using a zoom ring and an optical viewfinder allows better composition, the camera interface is much more responsive, and picture-to-picture times are much quicker. In short, the camera just feels much more "professional" than any other camera I had used before.
The Digital Rebel was my main camera for over a year, until May 2005 when I bought a Canon 1D Mark II. After that, the Rebel was repurposed as "backup" camera until late 2006, and subsequently sold in early 2007.