With my spanking new camera, it became a bit of a nuisance to walk around with my old tripod, since it had no quick release plate. This meant that I would either have to keep the camera on the tripod all the time, or screw and unscrew the camera each time I want to move. It was time to get an upgrade.
A bit of searching, reading reviews and checking out tripods at photography stores later I decided to buy a Velbon Ultra Luxi M. It's a cute little tripod that is easy to carry around. It weighs just a little over 1 kilogram and folded up it's only 35 centimeters in length. Yet if you fully extend the 5 sections of its legs, and slide up the center column, it comes up to a very respectable height of about 155 centimeters.
Another cool feature is that you can split the center column in half, and fold the legs really wide, so you can get very close to the ground with your camera, while retaining full stability. It's a very thin and light tripod, yet it can easily hold 2.5 kilograms of weight without losing stability.