If you had bothered to read my post, you will see that I was talking about crop sensor DSLRs and the S90. I'm not sure where FF and DB figure into the equation. And if you have to have FF or DB gear to get "decent prints," then I guess I'm just screwed. In any event, neither your comments nor your derogatory tone add anything useful to the discussion here, which is about a pocket camera, after all.
I just so happen to do a little comparing the past few days, between FF (Canon 5DII), APS-C (Sony R1), and my new Samsung TL500 (same sensor as S95/G12, afaik, 1/1.7 size ).
The APS-C sensor is a little less than half the size of FF, the 1/1.7 about an eighth the size of the APS-C (!).
The Sony and Samsung have the same resolution at 10MP, both have supposedly good lenses, the Sony is a couple of years old, the Samsung arguably one of the best current compacts .
After a lot of huffing and puffing, I managed to squeeze a tiff image out of the Samsung, via Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop, which actually looked surprisingly good, all things considered.
Almost as good as the out-of-the-camera jpg from the Sony.
Ok, better than the Sony jpg re. dynamic range, which I had tweaked heavily in ACR ; but detail, tonal range, gradients , no contest at all.
CA of course always an issue with tiny sensors, don't get me started on the noise .
And that is just one example out of many tests I made, judging the images only on the monitor ; I can't be arsed to waste ink and paper on prints.
Now those are just my personal impressions and my 'testing' is certainly flawed somehow, but the differences still seem to be massive between APS-C and pinky-nail sized sensors .
You can see and sense how hard the in-camera-processing is trying to put out a decent result from those small sensors.
I bought the Samsung cause I'm a sucker for articulated screens, it's smaller than the G12, with a fast Schneider lens, but I think I take it back .