Let Ω be a smooth bounded domain in RN, N≥1, let m,n be two nonnegative functions defined in Ω, and let ϕ:RN→RN be a continuous and strictly monotone mapping. We consider the existence and nonexistence of positive solutions for nonlinear problems involving the ϕ-Laplacian, of the form{−divϕ(∇u)=λm(x)f(u)−n(x)g(u)in Ω,u=0on ∂Ω, where λ>0 is a real parameter, and f,g:[0,∞)→[0,∞) are continuous functions modeled by f(t)=tq and g(t)=tr with 0<q<r. The subdiffusive, equidiffusive and superdiffusive cases are all treated, and some qualitative properties of the solutions are also given. As a byproduct, we obtain results in the case of a (roughly speaking) sublinear nonlinearity f and n≡0. We point out that some of our results are new even for the usual p-Laplacian. Our main tool is the sub-supersolutions method combined with some estimates on related nonlinear problems.