Out of those three, go with either the Olympus or the Kodak. Sony knows electronics, but their optics are, on average, subpar. Olympus and Kodak both have a good history and consistancy in their lenses. Doesn't matter how good the electronics are, if the optics suck, so will the photo. Panasonic is one of the few "electronics" manufacturer's that I'd actually recommend, but I'd still rate most of the "classic film camera" makers above in terms of quality (Kodak, Fuji, Olympus, Canon, Nikon, etc.) when comparing models at similar price points.
Go for more optical zoom as opposed to digital zoom when available.
Glass lenses are superior in quality to plastic.
Pay attention to what types of batteries they also use to make sure they're readily available and you're not stuck trying to find some odd shape or size.
Also, megapixel size does not always constitute better quality photos. Average point-n-cliker's rarely need more than a 5 to 6 megapixel camera as the largest size most of them will ever print may be a 11x14 (and that's even not that often). So unless you plan on actually making poster size prints, or are taking photos as a profession, you could be wasting money on "excess" megapixels that you don't really need. Of course, having a large megapixel camera won't hurt matters any, but considering the file size of some of the photos you end up taking at the max setting, it could make downloading/uploading/sharing kind of tedious. Also, the bigger the file size, the less amount of photos you'll be able to store on a media card.
