got thoughts on how i can score an amazing digital camera for around $200?

yes

check http://dealnews.com/categories/Electronics/Cameras/Digital-Cameras/168.html

brotha, thanks;)

There are a few good cameras below $200

including Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX3K 6MP

and Canon PowerShot SD450

And don't forget to go to dcviews.com to got reviews of lots of the best cameras

My personal rec, for that price range (depending on the feature-set), would be something is the Canon A630 family (all-around), or the Fuji f20 (small, excellent low-light)

I got a digital SLR camera "grey market" which is cheaper than retail (essentially your getting it imported from a region your not supposed to) but you don't get any warranty. Eventually the camera broke and I was screwed, but it was cheaper and overall I wasn't too displeased with that solution...

I prefer e-bay myself

I'd look up reviews on cnet.com and then search ebay for the best older models. Also, I got my Canon for cheap because it was the demo model in Circuit City.

Check on Costco online. There was a wonderful 6.0 megapixel Canon listed this week in the $200 range. I looked at it in the store...very nice!

Yo - i hope you haven't bought your camera yet.

first off, take a look at www.dpreview.com - it's a bit hard to get acquainted with, but go to the side-by-side comparison, select the cameras you are interested, in and start looking around.

Also - you should check out the Fuji finepix f30 zoom - it has, for that price, better low light resolution than ANY other camera on the market, and it's awesome. it actually beats out the f20, mentioned above, which is a hard thing to do. other than that, i'd go with the Lumix. the one above is pretty good, but the TZ1 is awesome: it's a 12x Zoom, and at the time it came out, less than a year ago, it was the smallest on the market, and it's still the best. The Leica lenses are sweet. Amazon's "new and used" is one good place to actually by them, and www.pricegrabber.com is another really good one. other than that, Froogle.com does a pretty good job also.

On the other hand, if you're looking for a camera is that is decent, and functional, and is TINY, then you should get a Casio Exilim - there are a bunch of different models on dpreview that you can check out, but again Amazon has a good tool for looking at the different cameras, even if you don't end up buying from them

also - refurbished is often times cheaper AND better than new - refurbdepot.com is not bad, but there are a lot of other great refurb companies

www.ebay.com

Yeah, do the research to see what the best camera for your money is, but also check this out: Flickr has done a small analysis of the most popular cameras used: http://www.flickr.com/cameras/

One note is not to get too obsessed with megapixels. Once you get past 5–6MP, there’s not going to be a huge difference in image detail, you’ll just use a lot more hard drive space, especially if you’re looking at point-and-shoot type cameras. That said, there are a lot of other factors that figure into the quality of a digital camera, and the technology is improving at a breakneck pace. So if you can stretch your budget at all then do so, and favor a newer camera with a lower pixel count over an older camera with a higher pixel count. YMMV, of course. Good luck!