New digital camera models are appearing all the time. It's very hard to find good info.

   Resolution
   I don't think anyone should buy a camera today with less than 1 megapixel of resolution. Ideally at least 2 megapixels. The higher the better.

   The connection
   USB is good and very easy to setup. Firewire is better. Some even are wireless. I would avoid a general serial port connection.

   Batteries
   A camera that takes ordinary AA batteries instead of expensive specialty batteries is great.

   Media
   A camera with a very small (smaller than floppy) removable media like SmartMedia is great. Usually it's much cheaper to buy the media separately.

   Zoom
   An optical zoom is helpful. I would not pay extra for a digital zoom.

   LCD monitor
   Even a bad lcd monitor can be good enough. It is priceless to immediately know if the picture looks anything like you thought it should be.

   Compression
   Ideally, you should get a camera that not only saves compressed images (ie. jpeg) but also saves in an uncompressed format like tiff.

   More
   Many cameras record moving video and/or sound. Some will playback MP3s.

   Our old little FujiFilm camera has survived trips to Europe and Asia.

      Paul