Zuki,
I bought my first digital camera about two years ago. I did a lot of research including looking at the color rendition of many models. Because I didn't know if I would be satisfied with a digital camera, I looked for the best performance at the lowest cost.
At that time there was no question that Olypus performance exceeded that of many cameras costing 4 and 5 times as much.
I bought an Olympus 360L which was only a 1.2 megapixel camera. I have taken over 1000 pictures with that camera and have been totally satisfied. As far as the number of pixels required, I have made beautiful sharp 8x10 prints from that camera. No matter the number of pixels, the pictures tend to look "soft" without sharpening them by using a good photo editing program. (The same is true of output from a scanner).
My biggest regret was that the 360L did not have optical zoom, which is a necessity for any serious photography.
The use of digital zoom requires much greater pixel capability in order to be useful as it is merely a form of cropping.

I have since purchased an Olympus 550 Zoom which is nominal in cost, has 3 megapixels, both optical (glass lens) and digital zoom which work together in a seamless manner, uses a Smart Media card for storage and has been totally up to my expectations.
I am sure that by now other manufacturers have perhaps caught up to Olympus.
That has been my experience for what it is worth.
Regards,
Walt