Which brand of digital camera is best. price -wise, ease of use.?

need to buy a digital camera for gift tomorrow. it gets confusing. beside the camera itself will i need to buy any other items? card? battery? are these separate or are they included?

Canon, buy the SD600 or SD630, Li-ion battery and charger included. You'll need to purchase a SD memory card.

The A-series is cheaper but you'll need to buy rechargeable AA batteries.

Kodak easyshare usually a card will come with it batteries
are approx. $4.00-$8.00

you can use rechargeable or regular AA

Sony

If you can get your hands on a "Consumers Report" with the special article on digital cameras at the library read it and then you can get the best deal.

I recently purchased a Kodak z612: 6mpix 12x optical zoom lens, image stabilization. I was looking at it at the store, along with the Canon PowershotS3, and I had three different people, in the period of 15-20 minutes come up and tell me that is was the best camera they've ever used. One lady worked on the local high school year book staff, and said that the school had two $3000 Nikon DSLR's used to take yearbook photos, along with her Z612. She said that in a side by side comparisons, you could not tell the difference between the two. I went to the store with my heart set on the Cannon S3, which has the same 6,pix, 12x optical zoom, image stabilization features, but retails for $399. The Z612 retailed for $269. What sold me, besides the recommendations from others and the price, was the 12x optical lens, by far, the strongest lens in a digital in this price range.
good luck,
--JOhn