I was in the market for a digital camera recently and had a budget of $200-$300, I bought a 2 megapixel Kodak 4330 with the charging base (cost was around $270) but once I got it home and all hooked up I wasn't liking the picture quality and silly to say but the lenscap WOULDN'T stay on no matter what I did (& I wanted to protect the lens) so that was frustrating.
I returned it and came home and spent alot of time reading thru online forums and such and found this site
http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html it offered GREAT reviews and detailed yet also practical opinions reviews and best of all sample shots from the actual cameras!
I then hung around a few newsgroups for photography expressing my interests and needs and got some recommendations, took those and went to the review site above and made my decision based on my needs, my budget and overall picture & camera features & quality & ease of use. I also found out not all 2 megapixel cameras produce the same quality picture and higher megapixels didn't neccesarily mean higher quality pictures in all cases (depending on brand, maker, digital vs optical zoom etc).
I had tried the Kodak 4330 and wasn't up for trying another Kodak really, and had been told to check out a few from Olympus and Fuji but my decision after reading around and reading reviews and owner thoughts in general was...
The Canon Powershot A40 - 2 megapixel I paid $250 for it at walmart, then officemax had it onlsale last week sundays ad (that ends today I believe, try to find last weeks sunday ads for officemax im sure its in there at least in the IN/IL area it was in our sunday ads) for $199, maybe check it out today if you read this since it was the last day of the sale, If officemax doesn't have it go buy it at walmart and show the officemax ad for a price adjustment! I took the ad into walmart showed them since I had just bought the camera from them, they adjusted the price to $199 no hassles (even though officemax didn't have the camera in STOCK, walmart never called or cared, just adjusted the price for me).
I have taken a good 50-75 pics with this Canon A40, and in the AUTO mode (no adjustments needed in AUTO mode, just point and shoot, but it has alot of manual adjustment options you can make) I am really happy with the quality of the pictures, it's not top of the line high end 5 megapixel yadda yadda yadda but it takes regular AA batteries (of which I use Rechargables) vs some cams which require a special battery pack and or charger.
I even printed out an 8x10 picture of my daughter that behind glass I bet you couldn't even tell the difference from a normal FILM camera, without starting a film vs digital war, it looks pretty darn good even at 8x10 PRINTOUT quality which is NOT something I can say about the kodak 2 megapixel camera.
Maybe stop by a local B&M store (Ritz or something) and in hand see what you think, ask questions, get a feel for the cameras etc, then come home with the model # and see what you can do best price wise on the net or thru sales papers.
Hope that helps a bit,
Bill
Facebook
Twitter