I am purchasing a digital camera I want something cheap but takes decent pictures. Any recommendations?

You say cheap so I am thinking you are going with a point and shoot as opposed to a dslr.

While this site lists deals on both kinds, there is a nice canon for just over $100 listed, and the left column has links to good camera outlets that are always running sales.
http://www.silvaspoon.net/cameras.html

I would make sure whatever you get has a minimum of 5 mega pixels, and has removable storage media of some sort as you do not want to get locked into a camera that you have a set amount of pictures you can take before you have to go home to download them. (or maybe that is not a factor, in which case I have one that I think is a 4.5 mega pixel, with a usb infared connection for transfering the pictures that I would let go of pretty cheaply. It is a casio qv770 and comes with all the software as well.
I have not really thought about selling it before, but realize that I never use it anymore having both a 6 mega pixel point and shoot and a dslr 8 mega pixel Olympus evolt e500.
The truth is that you can take good pictures with just about any camera if you know how.
I have a photography blog at http://photographmuse.blogspot.com/
if you are interested.

make sure the camera has at least 4 megapixels. Try Kodak or Canon. They usually produce decent pics.

Kodak Easyshare C310 under $100 from Dell. Great little camera. The card for it is about $35 and stores over 1200 pics.

Kodak makes reasonably priced cameras and they are easy to use and easy to transfer you pics to your pc ... and they take really good pics.

How cheap is cheap? While I love Nikon cameras, I'd suggest you look into the Canon A620. We did a lot of shopping while trying to stay in the under $400 range and this is exactly what we bought for our adult son before he went on a trip to Europe. For that money or less, you can get the camera and a one gigabyte memory card. I think it would be clser to $350 now. The A620 lets you control everything, if you know how, or it takes great shots in several automatic modes. This has been the Comcast Shopping Top Choice for months now. It uses "AA" batteries, too.

a nikon is the best take, but they are a little expensive, what type of camera are u looking for.......an SLR? A Nikon takes the best pictures i have seen, i have had a very good experience with the casio too

I got a Sony Cybershot 5.1 MP and have been very happy with it and the price.

How about a slate and some chalk? It's really cheap. Its digital - well you have to use your fingers to move the chalk. And best of all you have total control over image quality - color or black and white.

There are 3 classes of digital cameras. They all take pictures. The question is what you class as "decent". There are the consumer class cameras (under $350), the prosumer cameras (DSLR's under $1000) and the professional cameras (over $1000). If you are only going to take "snap shots" in the typical 4x6 print size, any consumer camera with at least 2.1 mega-pixel will do. I use a Pentax DSLR ($700 price range) 6.1 meg with an 18x55 mm zoom lens because I do a lot of macro work for high detail web work. It also does a great job emulating my Miranda 35 and I have a 135 telephoto that I use on both cameras for non-macro work.

make sure camera is branded geniune camera company like canon, olympus, fijiflim etc. coz they have good experience in making lens. i don;t reckon brands like sony, samsung etc. price wise they are ok they are cheap, but if you look into its quality they are crap. OR even some sony cameras have Canon lens, but somewhat expensive than normal Sony camera. Just hit the market.