I know fuckall about digital cameras...

[Dravyk]

Digitial zoom is definitely helpful. It's a common feature nowadays on the cameras and often goes both ways, back towards 35 or 50 as a wider angle, and of course the other way as a telephoto.

I'd say you want no less than 4 megapixels. Though others may say 5 or get as many as you can, I've found anything beyond is really overkill, IMHO. I have to resize mine down 1/4 tp 1/5 just to get them to 800x600 pixels.

Movies ... I'll have to leave that to someone else. Mine just has a short clips feature and I haven't had reason to try it out yet.