Thanks for all the input, I'm still deciding.
I'm looking at the RX100, LX7, X100 and XZ-2 more than the others at the moment. I get the whole interchangeable lens thing being good, but personally, for my use, I'd rather have something I can pull out, take a quick snap and put away again, rather than fiddle with different lens', especially if it means more to carry around on my person.
I would probably take the plunge with the RX100, but it concerns me that people are saying it's over-rated and over-priced. Is £420 too much for it? Would I be better going for the LX7 for £255 or the XZ-2 for £349?
The thing is with an interchangeable lens camera (e.g. m43) you don't have to fiddle with lenses at all unless you want to. Mine has the kit lens on it most of the time and just sits in my jacket pocket, I whip it out to take a quick photo and throw it back in my pocket. No need to change lenses or anything. I treat exactly the same as a compact camera. In fact I purchased it because I wanted a high quality compact, considered all the options like LX7, XZ-2, Sony RX100 just for something small, light with high performance. An m43 or Nikon 1 system just seemed to offer much more camera, at price points less than the RX100.
And then there is just the benefits of having the ability to change lenses if you want to. I have a 40-150mm (80-300mm equivalent) zoom lens which is also tiny, this fits into my other jacket pocket. Useful if I see any wildlife. But i don't need that extra lens at all, without it the camera has much the same lens focal range as most of the compacts.
Not saying it is the best thing for you personally, just don't want you to dismiss the idea because you have a preconceived idea that they are hard to us or you need to change lenses, or that they are big or heavy, or even expensive!
As I said, I wanted to simply buy a small compact to avoid using my mobile phone, size and weight and ease of use were all critical factors considered along side focus performance (I want something that focuses near instantly) and image quality. The small epm2 was exactly what I needed.
If I was to get an actual compact I might just see how small I could get, so it fits in a shirt pocket. None of the cameras listed here a shirt pocket sized. Canon S110 is almost shirt pocket sized and very good.
As for the RX100, don't get me wrong, it is a good camera, but very expensive. For that kind of money there are better cameras out there (e.g. an m43 interchangeable lens camera), for a lot less money there are cameras that are almost as good. People rave about the relatively big sensor, which is nice, but you can get an even bigger sensor in an m43 camera. And also the lens just lets the system down a bit, at the tele end it has a relatively small aperture compared to these other compact cameras, such that cameras like the LX7, Olympus XZ-2 let in more light and offer shallow depth of focus. But again, the RX100 is a very nice camera, just over-hyped more than anything
