I've always had Canon, Nikon's coolpix line is good too. Most I saw (with manual controls) were in the $250 range.

I'd go to target or best buy and look at the cameras they have in the $150 range, and play with them. Some companies interfaces are horrible and would make the camera no fun to use.

Megapixels are overrated so don't worry about that. The only benefit is cropping. You could print a 10x8 with a 6 megapixel camera.