Megapixel war

One thing people do not understand about the megapixel count is that the sensor stays the same and you are putting more dots of color on the same size sensor. In the smaller point and shot cameras you have small sensors and weaker processors. The result is most photos are very good until you try to print a large photos, then you will notice the digital noise or the photo is grainny in appearance. The important elements of the camera are the lense, sensor and processor and the pixel count is not that important after you goe above 5 mp.

Bob is right on the money. It has been years since lenses could resolve all the detail provided by the sensor and adding more pixels is often counter productive. Instead of more detail, you get more noise. Better to look for cameras with larger sensors, higher resolution lenses, CMOS and Fovion sensors and real viewfinders.

That doesn't mean you should automatically avoid high megapixel counts. My 15MP camera produces very good results way up to 1600ISO and usable images even beyond that. But I would have bought it if it had fewer pixels....