Use dealhacker.com to find a deal, mostly based on the size of the camera and the number of megapixels. You want optic zoom rather than digital zoom if possible.

The main thing to watch out for is the storage medium. A few use proprietary cards and those are ones to avoid. I sent Gian Jergens a website a while back with more digital imaging info/reviews than we mortals can digest. I'll look for that and post it.

Here it is, hope it's still live: http://petavoxel.wordpress.com/