Knowing next to nothing about photography (I usually use disposables), I'm asking for suggestions for a digital camera in the $100-$200 or so range. Trying to do a comparison online is bewildering to say the least. From my own limited research I understand that "shutter lag" is something to be avoided and image stabilization is a big plus. What are some other important factors to consider? (Bear in mind that the last non-disposable camera I bought was a Kodak 110 Instamatic circa 1978. )

You usually cant go wrong with a Canon. I have a 3.2MP Elph that takes great shots.

Canon and Nikon seem to be the two top rated.
One of the main choices you need to need to make now is AA or proritary battery or not.
You may want to research the flash recharge time, our Nikon 5600 takes 2-3 seconds to recharge the flash which gets annoying after a while.
Also avoid Sony unless you want to get locked in to their stupid memory Stick format and get an overpriced over rated camera.
Also some of the Kodak's can't connect via standard USB, you have to use their silly dock so if your working mobile say from a laptop you would have to carry it around.

We have an Olympus that we have been pretty happy with for the last couple of years. Unless you disable the flash, it does have some shutter lag (or whatever you call it, you push the button, and it takes the pic a second or so later. Makes it hard to get some of those shots you really wanted). It's little screen isn't the biggest in the world, but we live with it. It uses a rechargable battery, so you must carry the charger around on trips, and keep an eye on the battery level, and uses a standard USB cord to connect to our laptop. It came with free software you load into your computer, but most computers can do the same thing without any additional software. The Olympus software does have some features that I like better than the built in to the computer stuff. It uses a standard XD chip, so you can carry additional chips when going on a long trip if you want to. It only has a 3X zoom, we wish it had a little more, alto you can zoom in on it once you get the image into your computer. All in all we are pretty happy with it.

I have not used any of their digitals, but in my film days, I had good luck with anything marked Pentax...

for a good look at all the different types and prices of the different cameras to to. www.tirgerdirect.com and go to the digital camera section. I bought a HP from them and I am happy with the pictures and you get a good transfer program for the pc, it easy to upload to this site, or send e-mail pictures to eanybody.

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.

Don't buy the memory card with the camera a smost retailers mark up memory cards too much, buy it seperate but buy one. I've stuck a 2G in ours.
You will find plenty of different memory card formats, some standard and some now.
Most popular is SD, then you see CF in some higher end cameras because it can still be faster, then every now and then you kight find one that uses XD thought I thought that format had been discontinued and then you have the Sony which use memory stick.
SD and CF you will find plenty of vendors and sellers, the less popular like XD you may have to hunt for then with Sony you have a half dozen different variations of the Memory Stick that you have to check for compatibilty and you will pay more for since any other company that wants to make a memory stick has to license the format from Sony.

Depends what you need a camera for -- shanps of the family? Nature close-ups? landscapes? Photos of your gear...:)

Consumer Reports likes the nikon coolpic, so thats what I got.

TRO

Good point, Canon lists a 512Meg card for $35, but I bought a premium Lexar card for about $20 at StuffMart. You can get a no-name brand for probably $10.

One thing I noticed was that there seems to be no consistency when it comes to speed. Canon recommends their "high speed" card for taking full 30fps video, but they don't say what that speed is. The various brands ranged from no spec whatsoever, to "60x" to "speed optimized" to "really really fast". No way to compare them between brands and no absolute spec...

Hey norad45!

Check out dpreview.com .

A few things I learned about Digital cameras...

Stick to companies who make cameras (e.g., Cannon, Nikon, etc.) and stay away from companies who build cameras as an addition to their primary products (e.g., Kodak, HP, etc.).

Buy a camera that uses standard batteries. This is especially important if you travel. It's easy to pick up a spare set of AA's or carry 10 spares in your pack, but it's expensive to buy a spare proprietary. Waiting for them to recharge can be maddening if you're missing some photo opps. What if you lose your charger cord? You can still use rechargeable standard batteries for daily use. It's just nice to have convienence and options.

Buy memory cards separate. You can find them ridiculously cheap (compared to retail camera shops) on-line. And you don't have to dig long or buy from tiny, obscure shops. The big box on-line outlets run deals all the time.

This one, I learned the hard way. When buying memory, buy multiple cards in smaller sizes rather than one massive (2G and larger) card. Cards can be damaged, or just develop a random "card error" causing image loss. I'd rather lose part of my trip than the entire thing. Not to say card errors happen often, but they can. It happened to me. I now carry 3 512MB cards, shoot on the highest quality, and never delete a photo until I upload it to my laptop. It may be a slight hassle to carry multiple cards, but I'd rather play safe. It only takes a couple seconds to swap out cards in most cameras. To me, it's worth the peace of mind.

Not all cards are created equal. Buy the best quality cards you can afford. Expensive, name brand cards write much faster. The camera can only write so fast. This is the lag time you experience with most point-and-shoot cameras (higher end have less lag). It may drive you crazy at first, but you get used to it pretty quickly. You don't want to compound the lag time using a slow card if you can avoid it.

Digital cameras are a blast. Instant gratification, print only what you want, mess with your images with one of the many photo editing software applications, and just delete that family photo where Aunt Margo has one eye shut and her tongue hanging out.

Have fun and good luck.