I would also sing the praises of the panosonic luminx range. A friend bought a high end one for me/us as a wedding present,unfortunatley it died from serious missus
later my wife bought a dslr from ge but she wasn't happy with it, really good camera if you eant aload of manual controls and are taking very static images but there is quite abit of time lag on the shutter so no good for spontaneous children/pet photos. However after a bonus from work this summer (woohoo) I bought a luminix camera to swap with my wif's ge one, a lower range one (I forget which model) with 16megapixel and 10 optical zoom, ideal for automatic camera it has a very quick shutter response so good for quick photos. I think I spent under 150 but also bought a case and memory card