What should I look for when chosing an affordable digital camera?

Costco has the Canon Power Shot SD600 for $220.00. Is this a good value?

The higher the megapixel the better. I'm in the process of looking around at them. I am finding Canon to be higher priced but that price sounds good. The megapixel should be at least 6 and zoom should be at least 5x. Kodak has one with 7 megapixel and 10x zoom for right about that same price. It's a Z710.

Two of the most important features are resolution (expressed in megapixels) and how much of an optical zoom the camera has. A digital zoom does nothing more than just crop the picture to give the illusion that the picture has been zoomed in on.

This is a pretty good price on a pretty nice camera.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_...

Go there and click on "Read owner opinions" to see what owners think.

Of course, you'll need a decent memory card and I recommend a genuine Sandisk Ultra II (60X) or Extreme III (133X) of at least 1GB for this camera. Lexar is another excellent card supplier and they have the "Professional" 133X as well as the Platinum 80X to choose from. Both Lexar and Sandisk come with image recovery software and limited lifetime warranties.

I think the answer will be the same in the Uk as the US.
Rechargeable Lithium Battery and decent size memory stick or you will just end up paying for batteries and a bigger card when you run out of power and memory capacity.
Don't be tempted by massive MP size not only does it use lots of memory if its a cheap camera it probably won't be quality enough to support it.