What are the key features of a digital camera?

Well...its like this....i'm gonna buy a digital camera...My budget is 20-25000 rupees...I wanna have a gadjet that produces pictures that have the following conditions
1.) Fine quality in the sense....even acute details should be visible clearly in the picture....
2.) Proper clarity without any blur

I thought the above conditions r determined by the number of pixels in a camera....but my cousin says it is the optical zoom....wat do ya people have to say about this? and please suggest some good cameras(any good brand!) such that it meets the above conditions

I have no idea how much rupees are worth in USD but your cousin is partially right. Buy the camera you can afford with the most pixels especially if you plan on enlarging any of your photos, but the optical zoom determines what the pixels are doing so it is equally important. I have a Sony Cybershot. It is expensive but totally worth the money!

Zoom is nice, but not as important as the BLUR problem. Many cheap cameras produce great pictures, on a tripod or extremely bright sun light, but in general they are blurry because of movement.

Secondly, look for low-light feature. A good camera can take pictures without a flash in low lighting. Although, you should use a flash when needed.

Pixels are the most important feature, the more pixels the better the picture. What you really have to determine is what kind of quality do you want? How many pixels would give you the quality you need. 3 or 4 pixels is the standard for good picture quality. But remember the more pixels you get the more the cost of the camera goes up.
Cannon is a good mfg. of cameras, Pentax, Olympus , Nikon, are good camera mfgs.

I'm available @ abiusx 4 PM and lovelyy_persson@yahoo.com 4 mail

Okay.
The main feature is a CRT lens, which takes clear photos, and with natural spacings, not far hands, near heads.

The pixel depth, is not of gr8 value or importance, You should now that a 2.1 MegaPixel camera would take photos of 1680x1280 resolution, Which is enough for home use!

The Zoom, usually the camera's have got the Digital Zoom, which is so damn useles!
It's like zooming on the photo with photoshop! uknow

And also , cameras with Optical Zoom support, are bought twice the usual price, Commonly.

U should Xplain ur sit more, to get more dets.

lens type, mega pixels , battery life carl zeiss has a very good optics and remember that when you use the camaras 1.8 to 2 inch screen it will use more battery power..... i like sony...