for our lass for crimbo.it's confusing as hell.
She needs just a point and shoot type thing,the one she's got only has 4mp and sod all memory.any recommendations ?wasn't planning on spending much more than 150 quid.
she does take loads of photos and would like to be able to do close up more advanced type stuff.

Try asda, you can pick up some good ones in there a lot chepaer than any of the computer shops

i have been using the daughters fuji finepix and it is brilliant when i am not shaking with distemper
that is the only draw back of digi keeping your self or the subject still
on auto it is fantastic
i would say view my profile on "pictures of England ",,,,Hartlepool but that would be conceited of me
seriously had it about four years it is a F601ZOOM all you ever need it is the bizz
you may have to get a decent card with it the one i have holds about 250 pics

Just get a bigger SD card. You can get 1GB cards now not very expensive and they'll hold 1000 photos or more. I can't see why you need more than 4 MPx unless you're doing giant blow-ups.

Mind if you do that you'll have to think of another idea for a present

Sony CyberShot T20 8.1mp 3x Optical Zoom Digital Camera Black
ON EBUYER for £125, free delivery or next day for £6.99

cheers for that folks

xmas wouldn't be xmas would it!!

so where did i quote that??

no idea must be the gremlins getting in?

People confuse the number of megapixels with camera quality. The lens quality is far more important and as Mr Head says; whether you have 4 MP's or 20 is irrelevant unless you're making poster size blow ups.

i fully concur

Yes needing high megapixals is a myth agmonst most camera users

Things seem to be levelling out on the Megapixel front, if you really want a new one look for something in the 7-8 Megapixel range unless you're considering getting a Digital SLR (much more than your price point!) The sensor size on the compact cameras stays the same, so the more megapixels the less light per pixel - ie it's less sensitive in poor light, digitial noise creeps in etc. The sensors in the DSLRs tend to be bigger so it's less of an issue.

Things to look out for....

Optical Zoom is much better than Digital Zoom. Optical moves the lens; Digital basically takes the centre part and makes each pixel bigger, so you lose quality.

Batteries. Comparing a couple of compact Pentaxes, ones with a rechargable battery are better than ones that run of AAs - while you can get AA batteries anywhere, you need to as most cameras will eat them at a rate of knots.

Oh, and look at http://www.bestcameras.co.uk - they're the internet front end to a genuine camera shop in St. Helens called Kamera, we've had a couple of cameras from there and got really good service both times. Their prices are pretty good too....

Just to illustrate the point; I've got a Canon D60 digital SLR. it's a 6 megapixel camera and will take a far better photo than any compact digital on the planet irrespective of budget.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.202-7190.aspx

That looks a good deal to me £50 quid compact camera.6.2 megapixels & 3xOptical zoom.
Only £50