There are a few things that you should consider before you buy. Things like what kinds of pictures does your wife like to take? Does she just take snapshots and pictures on vacation or of family occasions etc?

If she likes to take more challenging pictures like Vegas lights etc. then you will want a camera with some good manual capabilities. Sometimes automatic cameras don't do well with creative challenging types of situations. They may overexpose shots where there is a small amount of bright image in a frame of darkness like stage productions or the lights in Vegas or Astrophotography... or underexpose a situation like with backlighting or at the beach on a very bright day. Exposure compensation or manual capabilities are helpful. Also consider things like landscapes or wildlife. Does she like to take a lot of pictures of very big things or in close quarters like museums etc. Some zoom lenses will zoom tighter which would be good for wildlife and portraits but will not widen out much which could be a problem when you are taking pictures in close quarters. A 3x would refer to the fact that the tightest shot is 3x the widest. Therefore 2 cameras with 3x lenses could be dramatically different where 1 might not get as tight but gets wider and the other gets tighter but not as wide.

As for Megapixels, you might be able to save some money with this consideration. Does your wife appreciate large pictures like 8x10 or 11x14 on the wall or is she happy with a 4x6 for the family album. Megapixel is relative to the size of the image. It is calculated by multiplying the hight of a picture by it's width. For example, 800 x 600 is 480,000pixels or, roughly 1/2megapixel. Looking in Adobe Photoshop that would print a 8x11 pic at 72dpi or a 3x4 at 200dpi. Most pictures that I print are around 72dpi unless I am using them for a special purpose. Therefore, a 2.X mpxl camera may be very sufficient for most uses. If your wife is only going to be using it for ads and use on the net, you don't need that big of a picture. Most pictures I use on the net are less than 320x240 for consideration of loading times etc.

I personally have a Nikon Coolpix 990 which has been replaced by the 995. It is 3.3mpxl and gives me the ability to get nice 8x10s at 1024x768 resolution. That is what I take most of my vacation pictures and the like with since I can't print larger than 8x10 on my printer anyways. 1024x768 incidentally is 784,432 or almost 1mpxl. I do use my camera for Astrophotography as well http://members.aol.com/wmas1960/homepages/Astro.htm. For that I use the full 3.3 capability because it allows me a HUGE image that I can crop the excess space out and still have some nice size cropped images. For this application it is another example of a use where manual capablities are very helpful. Also if you feel that you might want to use lens adapters, filters or attach to a telesope etc. than check the camera to see if it has a thread on the lens. That will allow the attachment of adapters or filters.

You might also consider ability to attach external flash units. Most of these cameras don't have very adequate flashes and will not illuminate things more than about 8 feet away, if that. Also most that I have seen have horrible problems with "Red Eye". That is because of the closeness to the camera lens of the flash. It might be useful to have external capability so that you can use a more powerful flash and locate it off of the camera if you take a lot of people pictures.

Most of what I mention above exceeds the uses for most people but, not knowing how accomplished of a photographer your wife is or what her interests are they may be things you might want to consider when choosing a camera. For the same price, some cameras may offer different features mentioned above and omit others. One manufacturer may therefore outdo another.

OH, Keep attentive to features like self timer and Bulb and other exposure times if you like fast subjects or dark available light subjects. Some cameras may offer 1/2000th of a second and stop a bullet but only offer 1/8th of a second. Others may offer 1/1000th and be good at the beach and offer 16 seconds or Bulb which is where the shutter stays open as long as you hold the release. Good for the beach on a sunny day and taking long exposures in the dark. If you do take long exposures a lot, think about what batteries the camera takes as it will eat them up. AA Rechargables is good. Also make sure it offers a cable release so you don't have camera shake when you are holding the shutter open.