A major point in my decision (I bought an Olympus D460Zoom) was the optical zoom. If your wife is inclined to use a zoom function an optical zoom is crucial for two reasons.

1) It is more flexible than the digital zoom, digital zzom typically has 1,2,or maybe 3 settings but optical zoom allows you to zoom to any setting within the range. (My camera has 3x optical and 2x digital zoom)

2) use of the digital zoom requires that the video monitor be on, this is the big drain on batteries that everyone complains of.