How important are megapixels?

Canon has a camera for just about every price range.
The A75 and A85 are almost identical except for the 1 megapixel. Here is a comparison chart:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=canon_a75%2Ccanon_a85&show=all

3 megapixels will produce an excellent 8x10 print.

The camera companies are in a megapixel race and you don't have to join in the race.

As far as being obsolete....who knows?

The Canon "A" series of cameras has been around for a long time. My brother still has his A60 and loves it. Most of the camera companies will be announcing new cameras in late February.

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No of megapixels do count when you make a large 8x10 print. At the moment, most current digital cameras round upto at least 5 MPs. It's not only the MPS alone that makes picture look nicer, but also the newer CCD or CMOS ( for picture detector ). Canon A75 and A85 are good cameras, but soon obsolete. But, if your concern are the money to be spend, the higher pixel will be more preferable.

The answer to this question is dependent upon the size of pictures you may want to get when you print them, and also it depends on the quality of the lens you have in the camera. I had great success with an Olympus 1.3 megapixel camera for many years, but the maximum size I could print without major distortion was 4x6. The lens quality on that camera was outstanding so I got some very sharp pictures to view on the computer even though it was really low in megapixels. Do be careful to get a good brand of camera. Don't try to save money by buying a cheap one.