My personal rec is for either Fuji (esp A20_) or Olympus (esp C220Z/300Z). These manus were fantastic all-rounders about a year ago when I last had a good look around, most of the other manus had a weak point in one field or another.
Things to note:
Obviously the MEGAPIXEL resolution of the camera. A lot of reviews state you need 3.0MP+ esp for A4 photo printing, but then they're just spoiled ... lets face it if we tested top of the range 19" and 21" CRT monitors we'd hate even the best 17" monitor wouldn't we LOL! So 2.0MP is certainly very decent and it doesn't cost a whole lot either, certainly more than adequate for A4 photo printing esp if you're a dab hand at sw enhancing BUT do check out how much extra the 3.0MP cameras are. Obviously number of true (ie non-interpolated) pixles (or MP) is important but things such as sharpness, colour reproduction, light sensitivity, shake sensitvity, features etc are all also very important.
ZOOM is another big topic, of course Digital Zooom simply crops the pic so is pretty pointless, optical zoom uses the usual lens which tends to add to the size, weight, battery usage and expense of the camera but allows you to zoom in without sacrificing pixels.
MEMORY FORMAT is largely irrelevant other than how much the new cards cost, Smart Media and Compact Flash are the most widely used. MEMORY SIZE is of course important, 32MB allows quite a lot of 2.0MP images to be saved but then 64MB is pretty cheap too and probably worth picking one up regardless of what the camera comes with.
CONNECTION TYPE, serial is a waste of time, USB is fine and found on all modern PCs while USB2 is MUCH faster and found on the latest PCs (but USB2 works happily at USB1 speeds anyway).
BATTERIES are often over-looked, I like the cameras which use standard AA (rechargable) batteries as this works out very cheap and flexible, allows you to stick in any AA batteries if you get caught short (pref Alkaline though), IMHO much better than being tied in to a companies own expensive propriety battery standard.
A FLASH is a must, you won't get anywhere near decent results without one! Note the acessories you may want/need such as extra batteries, carry case, more media, stand etc as how much you get with the camera varies quite a bit so don't be fooled by a bare-bones bundle or disregard a camera too quickly based on price alone.
ABILITIES, many modern d.cams allow you to use them to capture short and simple video sequences (without sound) as well as use them as a webcam, it doesn't tend to add any extra to the cost so it's cool anyway! You can also find other things like the ability to output to a TV, but of course do weigh up what you will actually end up using before shelling out more money.
200-250 notes is enough to snag you a very nice camera, while 100-150 gets you a whole lot more than it used to!
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