My digital camera has been stolen so I'm looking to replace it but I don't know much about them?

What should I look for? I want something simple to use for around 拢200-拢250 that takes good quality pictures but its just for general use so there's no need for it to be fantastic. Any ideas what I should look out for? Can anyone recommend something?

i always recommend physically shopping for this sort of thing, go to a camera shop, play with a few with the salesperson giving his advice, then tell them you'll think about it and then compare prices online before buying.

2 things to consider for the camera:
1) Megapixels: this is your guide to the sharpness of image, anything over 3 Mp is going to give a good picture, camera's in your price range will be at 5 MP or more most likely

2) Memory Card: removable memory for the camera, well worth saving some of your budget to buy a couple of these.
check the price of memory cards when you shop for the camera (there are several different types so its important to know which one the camera you are buying will take).
1 GB memory cards shouldnt be too expensive and will hold a lot of photo's, i'd get 2 1GB instead of 1 2GB card, so you have a spare.

First of all I'd file a report with the police for the camera... but thats just me. Then I'd go over to my friends at CNET.com and check them out.. here is a link;

http://reviews.cnet.com/Digital_cameras/...

Here is a listing by editor's choice of the best digital camera's for price... Hope it helps!

I went to Jessops when I wanted to purchase a new camera, they were really helpful and I got what was suitable for me.

I recommend one with as much OPTICAL zoom as you can get for the money. My Olympus is quite old, but I'm still happy with it. I find that I have to zoom at least 2X in order to not have the pictures seem far away.
Some say that the megapixels are important, but mine gives fine pictures with only 1.3 megapixels.
Pricewatch.com can help give you a ballpark figure for prices, but I recommend buying from someplace closer where you can get better customer support if there's a problem.

Look for a camera with lots of mega pixels and OPTICAL zoom, NOT digital zoom, which is a load of rubbish.they shouldn't be too expensive.

Sorry to hear about your camera. You say for general use. Consider Canon PowerShot A530. It has 5 megapixels and 4X optical zoom, and look at Fugifilm FinePix A500 5MP, 3X optical zoom. Each under $200. Check out Website dpreview.com

buy canon or nikon in general their compact camera are the best in the market. If you want to buy compact & powerful (slightly larger than compact, since u r a girl u won't like it because bulky), the best in market will be canon S3iS, canon A710iS, Sony H5. I am using Panasonic TZ01, it has 10X zoom, Leica Lens, 640x480 non stop movie recording capability @30 frame per second, using SD card, come with image stabilizer (U need them to take night shot or telephoto without tripod). There is a bit of noise if you set ISO above 400, but in most situation ISO 100-200 will be sufficient