I had an FZ38, which is pretty neat. The image quality is really good so long as you don't go above ISO800. Plus it's very full featured too (18x zoom, 720p movie recording, manual settings like shutter speed or aperture priority even in movie mode, nice ergonomics). And it recently dropped in price; I think it's around £180 at Dixons.
Personally I would stay away from the newest ones. Adding more megapixels and more zoom on that tiny little sensor does no favours for the camera at all.