A friend needs suggestions.

[Tempting Fait]

A friend wants to buy his wife a new digital point and shoot camera. Mostly she'll be taking pics of the kids and the camera she has is slow focusing and by the time it takes the pic the 2yo is in a different county.
Any suggestions?? I haven't kept up on whats what.

[RogueRyder]

I like any P&S nikkon, i have had good luck with them in the past. I have an olymus now and it take some crappy pics if I am moving at all.

I guess best buy has some 16 mp camera on sale for like 150 right now. My mom just got one for my grandma.

[Desert Dweller]

The short answer is that for point-and-shoot, it really doesn't matter.  The consumer cameras out today are so capable and simple to operate that there really isn't much difference.  The quality on most of them is pretty much the same.  I would probably stay with a brand name I recognize because a company like Canon or Nikon won't put their name on something that's cheesy. 

Other than that, unless your friend wants to get into serious photography, something that's easy to use, and has around $200 to spend, anything over 10 MP is good.  If there is $400 to spend, the Canon SX40 is nice.

[Tempting Fait]

I like the looks and reviews on the Nikon S6200. Only negative was it was hard for someone with large hands to handle, person it's for ia a woman with fairly small hands. Newegg.com has it for 150. But then I was never a big fan of Canon cameras.

[mallardisme]

I looked at this convo a few hours back and really had nothing to say because it has been 10 years since I looked for a point and shoot. (I was in the market because my wife was pregnant and I wanted something, anything digital to capture the experience)
DD put it best and I absolutly agree. The cameras available are awesome. Stick with a good brand. Canon and Nikon are nice, but Sony and many others are out there as well.

What do you want? How big do you want the final prints to be? Many do 8x10 quite well. Most folks are great with that. That really is the question you need to ask and don't let someone 'upsale' you.

The features to look for are zoom capabilities, how big you want the final image to be, Do you want video?, can it work in dim light, and.... Sam can help me here.... Does it suck batteries?

 

[Fritzydoodle]

Howard touched on it - zoom.  Look for higher optical zoom rather than digital zoom.  Digital zoom lets the chip do the work in exchange for pixels.  What good is it to zoom WAY in if when you print it larger than a postage stamp it contains all of 6 pixels?