I just bought a camera in your price range ($200). I'm no photography expert and I was replacing a cheap 5 year old camera, so YMMV.

It was a toss-up between Canon and Nikon until I read some reviews. Among other things, people complained about blurry photos with the Nikon, although it did have a mode where it took ten shots rapid-fire and saved the least blurry one. When I see a work-around like that I know there's a problem!

I ended up with a Canon A540 which seems to be an older model that might not be on the shelves much longer. To my untrained judgement it seems to work pretty well so far.

One thing - count on buying a bigger memory card along with the camera. It seems that none of them come with enough memory for more than a few photos.