BigJohn -
A site that I found useful was
Steve's Digicams. He has a lot of comparison shots that give a sense of the picture quality...at least as good as you can get on a computer.
I'm not sure how much the 'ease of use' factor plays with your wife, but it was important w/ mine. When I was in the market for a digital cam, I had to balance that up against the reviews and the comparison shots. I ended up going w/ the Kodak DX6440 (4 MegaPixel). I did a lot of comparisons between 4 and 5 MP shots and found that the Kodak seemed to keep up w/ the 5MPs that I was looking at. However, what really pushed me over the edge was the printer dock functionality. I just walk up, plop the camera on the top of the printer, and then hit print. Yes, many cameras can just plug into printers, but this is just that much simpler.
The photo quality w/ the printer, as well as the Canon printer that I use for larger prints, is truly amazing.
...just my two cents. There are probably other cameras that have more bells and whistles, but the people over at Kodak seem to have it right in the 'ease of use' and WAF area.
Happy Shopping
