It very difficult to get a recommendation from across the range offered by all the manufacturers simply because most people have only one make of camera and limited (if any) experience of all the others. So I can only speak from my own experience of the cameras I use - which are Sony.
For a lower priced camera I've found the Sony a350 to exceed my expectations. I've not found noise to be a significant issue up to and including 400 ISO - beyond that it is not really any worse than many other cameras.
The large 14mb pictures are very detailed and the dynamic range is outstanding. Having an articulating "live-view" screen makes it easy getting shots which otherwise would be difficult or next to impossible. The LV is very usable in the field - much the best implementation yet - from any maker.