Buying my first DSLR camera and am unsure?

I have been looking around for some time now and I've come to the conclusion that I'm getting a Canon. I have a Nikon digital camera and it's great and all, but I'm really interested in that brand right now.
I had a 12 mexapixel SLR picked out with a 18-55mm lens I believe, but then I thought about the mexapixels and I got discouraged to buy that. I don't know if it was the right thing or not. They also had a sale that if I bought that camera, I'd get $100 off a 75?-300mm lens, which would make that lens $99. Not only that, but I would also get a free 8GB memory card. So I'm thinking, holy *** that's a good deal. But the megapixels are destroying me.

So now, I have another camera bookmarked that I was almost completely sure I was going to get. Now I don't know about that either, lol. There's no free memory card nor is there $100 off a lense. But it's 18 megapixels.here is the link to it: http://www.bestbuy.com/...635&st=EOS Rebel T2i 18.0-Megapixel Digital SLR&cp=1&lp=1

Thanks for any help. I'm really confused on the whole thing. I don't know which camera to get. Which lenses… Anything.

You should compare the sensors on the two cameras. The 12 megapixel sensor may be larger than the 18 megapixel. Or they may be the same size and the 18 megapixel is just jammed with more pixels. That would mean more noise.

The other question: what are you going to use it for? My first digital camera (Nikon) was 3.2 megapixel and I have recently had a shot I took 7 years ago printed to 16 x 20 inches! The generally opinion was that a 3.2 megapixel image could only to printed to about 4 x 6 inches.

Both Nikon and Canon are both outstanding camera. You want go wrong with either but check the sensor sizes.

With a dlsr the megapixel's don't really matter very much unless you are going to print out huge pictures. I have a1 canvas's around my house and i did them with my 10 mega pixel dslr so 18 mega pixels isn't actually necessary. The first camera you picked out is defiantly the better choice and nice job choosing canon.

75-300mm is horrible, one of the worst lenses Canon has ever made. Hence the price.

What's wrong with 18 megapixels? More won't make your images sharper or crisper, but they're there… Image quality is the same on all DSLRs. The T2i is excellent, but Nikon D3100 and Canon EOS T3 are good as well. Don't buy from Bestbuy, Costco and such sites, they don't know anything about photography - look at Amazon, Adorama, B&H, they're the best.

Here's a DSLR Buying Guide - http://www.the-dslr-photographer.com/2009/11/which-dslr-to-buy/