In reply to StefanB:
Digital photography has come on in leaps and bounds over the last ten years with incremental upgrades year on year. However digital cameras themselves have not correspondingly broken down or died as quickly as upgraded products hit the shelves. In fact if looked after digital cameas can last for 10+ years and work very well.
My first digital compact, a Nikon Coolpix 885 camera, hit the shops in 2001. It only takes 3.5mp images but it still works and takes images perfect for internet viewing. Quite a few of those images are on my UKC gallery. Its just a compact and is light-years behind anything today, even on my phone. But it still works.
Moving away from my example of a simple point and click camera, about five years ago I bought a second-hand dSLR, Nikon D40, off ebay for £99 to give to my climbing partner who studied photography at college and loved his 35mm film SLR. That camera hit the shops in 2006. To this day the camera is my mate's primary camera and is used at every opportunity from family events to climbing to skiing trips.
He has just upgraded the image quality and capabilities of his camera when I sold him my old nikon 18-105mm lens and he is still impressed with the image quality produced by a 10 year old camera with 6mp images and only three focusing points in the view finder. Most importantly his camera can be put into complete manual mode.
The only drawback of a 10 year old camera is the issue of ISO which goes up to 1600. Even that is not the end of the world, as most shots are taken outside where the ISO sticks around 200 to 800 at most. And there is a wonderful invention called a tripod if slower shutter speeds are required rather than chasing higher and higher ISO settings.
If you have a limited budget and you want to get as much technology as possible then I would buy second-hand.
Take my own camera as an example. I have a Nikon D5000 and a sigma 17-70 lens virtually glued to it. The camera was bought brand spanking new when it was released in 2009 and the lens was bought in January this year. The lens was the best that I could afford or more accurately think I could justify without Little Miss Lemming telling me off for being so stupid with spending my money.
My Nikon camera still takes pictures that I am exceptionally proud of. Most importantly there is no sign of that camera showing signs of malfunction or imminent death even with just under a shutter count of 75,000.
The count is quite high as I quite like doing time-lapse photography.
My point is that my camera cost £850 new, with a kit lens, and an extra Sigma lens of £320 bought this year. All this comes to £1,170. That's a lot of moola for a camera that still produces excellent results.
Now if I wanted to buy that setup from a second-hand website such as mpb.com then I would expect to shell out the princely sum of £140 ish for the camera. Now as the lens is so new you'd have to pay full price unless you can find it second-hand. Even still the whole set-up would be under £500 giving you enough cash to buy extra batteries or a filter or two.
You could go all giddy and go for a professional camera like a Nikon D3 with full-frame sensor for £550 body only. That puppy would hold its own quite well.
You can get quite a lot of technology if you go second-hand rather than getting bleeding edge kit.
Edit
I am now experimenting with Micro four thirds. Not because my dSLR is crap but more to do with the fact that I am now enjoying taking videos in 4k.
Post edited at 13:02