I treated myself to a Samsung camcorder F40 which takes digital stills too - chatted with experts about what is best and easy to use and this was the one - it cost £129.95 from Tesco and at the mo comes with an additional free battery and case! Its wicked and the zoom is brill!
I love my Flip. Its not a camera as well though, but is brilliant for taking videos.
What's that? Do you have a link to what it's like?
http://www.theflip.com/en-gb/products/specs.aspx
I got a very basic one two years ago and its been brill. it fits in a pocket and you just plug it, via USB, into your laptop. You could then get a camera too if you needed stills (which it sounds like you do).
I've got a panasonic camera, and I've read a lot of good things about all of their models. They take amazing pictures!
Here is one for less than £100
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-L...94/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1294092926&sr=8-12
We've just bought a Flip Mino 2nd Generation video camcorder, there was a review of it on the web and it showed comparisons with two other camcorders of the same shot, in indoor lighting and this one was by far the best.
It wasnt cheap though but not too far off that price range, we saved up for it and we havent stopped using it.
I've just posted a video in Stories and Photos section, so if you want to see what its like have a look there - although I have to say some of the quality has been lost during upload to You Tube, unfortunately.
You get an editing software package with it as well that is easy to use. I think you can use the software to take off stills, but the camera itself doesnt take stills.