I am not a camera expert. But from what little I know, the number of mega-pixels don't matter much.
It has more to do with the quality of EACH pixel. Then there is the quality of the optics which seems to make a huge difference.
I typically stay away from any camera that is from a comptuer company (Dell, HP, etc) and only buy from a real camera company (Canon, Nikon, etc). I am not a pro, but I think the real camera companies understand better what a good final image should look like.