There is much more to buying a digital camera than the camera itself. I myself brought one and broke the LCD and I dropped it and then realized the beautiful world behind when things go wrong!!!
I have a canon and just realized that they have a very good support network across country for your camera issues. So first thing you should also think about before you buy is.. how is the support available in your locality ? Do they service cameras brought abroad ? How much is the service charges ? Is it third party repair shop or company service centre ?
Next another major part of digital camera is the memory. What type of memory card you want with your camera ? The cost and availability are all different be it a memory stick, SD memory card, MMC card what every be it, what is the memory card size that the camera ships with ? I know most of canon ship with 16MB SD card but there are offers of starters kit which have 246MB plus rechargeable batteries. Even with this, you need to know can a memory card manufactured by any other company works with your camera ? Should you have to buy from the same company which may be costlier for accessories.
Next is rechargeable batteries ? Every camera manufacturer has his own standard batteries... many have proprietary batteries which can be replaced only from the manufacturer others use standard AA rechargeable batteries.
With rechargeable batteries it is NiMH is considered the latest standard and 2500mAh NiMH are the in thing for digital cameras but they cost a lot in India and in US some 25 USD while in India varies between 1500-3000 rupees.
Last but not the least is Video feature. Many of today’s top rated digital cameras have very good video capability including 35mm VGA at 30fps, but with video comes your memory card size bottleneck. It’s not just the size of memory card but even the speed of memory card, the y come is various speed (10x/60x/80x.. like sandisk/sandisk ultra II).
Once you look beyond the camera and research other things, you will definitely get maximum bang for your bucks. Also consider steve’s digital camera, it is considered as a very good place for digital camera reviews and latest news on this, just make sure you stop by this web site before you buy one.