Difficult choice now I think about it, my son is also 12 and uses my old coolpix 8700, and I can tell you the sophistication of this model goes well beyond anything he wants to understand...a this stage I like to hope.
The bits he loves about it are the folding screen, he'll uses that to get more angles than you thought possible, but also the view finder just as much, especially when sunny etc. The Zoom, obviously
He processes his own shots in a basic way and loves the fact you can crop right in on 8 mega pixels and still have a big printable image.
...So I just set everything on the camera for him WB full auto etc....and he gets on and enjoys himself. Nearly forgot, he loves the movie option as well....loads of short movies of his mates doing fight scenes. lol
The biggest problem with this camera is its slow to respond, this makes him take time to compose though, so not so bad, although he does get slightly frustrated when theirs some action to be had...lots of missed and blurred images etc.
Just thoughts. HTH.