Nikon Coolpix s200 problem - PLEASE HELP!?

I have a Nikon Coolpix s200 digital camera and it's been great but recently i've noticed on zooming in that some of the images are quite pixelated/poor resolution. this is jsut when i zoom in a tiny bit and i'm sure the image quality shouldn't be this bad.
Here are some details of a picture taken on the camera:
Dimensions: 480 x 640pixels
Size: 74.4 KB
JPEG quality: 82 (422) - not sure what this means

this compares with a resolution of 3872 x 2592 of an image from my dad's camera which is much better but should there be this big a difference?
is there any way i can change the resolution or something like that (i've looked through all the menus/modes on the camera and can't find anything)

Any help would be reeeeeeeeally useful

Thanks

That camera is capable of a resolution of 3072 x 2304, why would you set yours to the very very small 640 x 480?

At that small resolution you are no doubt viewing it at 100% and as soon as you zoom in past 100% you WILL get pixellation (which is true for any and ALL images, regardless of resolution or camera quality).

You need to make sure your settings are ALWAYS on the biggest possible resolution and the least amount of compression (e.g. highest quality).

Yes, you most certainly can make those changes. Study the manual (download one if you have lost yours), change them, then leave them at the best possible settings.

Also: use your optical zoom, but don't EVER use the digital - you just get back into the same pixel problem much quicker.

Yes....

You have poor resolution and high compression.

You dad's camera has high resolution and low compression.