Best digital compact - £200?

[JohnnyG]

I'm after a new camera around the £200 mark.
I haven't got the foggiest about the settings so I need one that can do most of the thinking for me in 'Auto Mode'.
I'd prefer >20x optical for when I'm stalking prey around the wilds of London, not too bulky so it's easy enough to pack on holidays and days out etc and uses SDHC cards (do they all?) as I have a few of those already.
Any ideas?

 

[JohnnyG]

Well in the compact 'superzoom' category any of the Panasonic TZ / Nikon S9*** / Sony HX / Canon SX range will give very similar results and perform about the same so that where I'd be looking. They all have teeny tiny sensors with very narrow lenses that produce image quality that suffers massively because of it.

The no brainer for image quality in the compact category is the Fuji XF1 at £129 although it doesn't have the long optical range that you desire but does have a significantly larger sensor and wider aperture.

The only recent compact superzoom I've used recently was a Sony HX50B which has a 30x lens, it felt pretty premium and operated fairly speedily although I was using it for someone else and didn't get to see the images back at at desktop.

Thanks
I know very little about cameras so have no idea what the issues with the sensors & lenses mean, would you mind explaining it & how/if I can get around that?
Should I look at Bridge cameras or something if I want good zoom & pic quality?

 

[JohnnyG]

That's brilliant, thanks.
It certainly gives me an idea of how they work & what I should look for

 

[JohnnyG]

After looking more closely at the specs of cameras I was looking at I can now see what you mean
The XF1 has a 2/3 sensor which improves the picture quality over the smaller 1/2.3 sensors that the 'superzoom' cameras all seem to have.
If I were to go for less zoom (say 5-10x) is there anything better than the XF1 for picture quality in the £200 or so price range?
I woudn't need fancy stuff like wifi or gps either

 

[JohnnyG]

Thanks so much for the advice.
I've got 3 cheapish cameras already and every one of them has disappointed me in their picture quality and as I didn't want to be disappointed again with rubbish holiday snaps etc I bit the bit bullet and went for an RX100 - £349 -> £299 with £50 cashback.
Without the advice given here I have no doubt that I would've just spent £200 on something I just thought would give good pictures.

The difference is incredible just in Auto mode -

Canon A2400is

Sony RX100

Thanks again

 

[JohnnyG]

It is indeed and probably more importantly I've got hold of a copy of 'Understanding Exposure' to try and do the camera some justice