Agree the Covert Red40 is my go to camera. Great battery life, outstanding day pics, night are very usable and if you want to do video it has HD vid with sound.
I change the batteries either once a year or at 24,000 pics which ever comes first. LOL Even at that the batts weren't dead, just seemed like a good time to change them.
For a bit less money (and no HD video) the MP6 is a solid camera that I normally get about 18,000 pics out of a set of batts on, personally it's second on my list of "go to".