The guy at our local camera shop told me that 3.2 megapixels is all that's needed for 8x10 pictures. I didn't see many camera below that when I was shopping for mine a couple months ago.

Both of my digitals are Olympus models, the C-50 and the C-5060. My sister has an Olympus Stylus and she loves it. I think her's is a 3.2MP. It takes great pics of her kids and is easy to use. I think it was fairly close to your price range. My mom has an HP and she hates it. It's hard to use, the software sucks. She went back to her film camera!

I love the macro mode. It definately is needed if you want to take extreme close-ups.

have fun shopping.