I bought my mother a Canon PowerShot A460 camera, and she really likes it. It’s a fairly compact 5 megapixel camera, and quite inexpensive.
I’ve had a PowerShot G2 for about five years now, and it’s about time to replace it. I’d like to get a digital SLR like the Canon Digital Rebel XTi for digital photomicrography of integrated circuits, but for my initial experiments a friend has offered to lend me his Nikon.
For general daily use, though, I don’t want to carry around a digital SLR. I like the convenience of the LCD viewfinder on non-SLR digital cameras. I’m tempted by the PowerShot SD900.