Panasonic Lumix LX5
Canon S100/s95
Nikon P300, P7100
Olympus XZ-1

this few model are the most bang for the buck compact camera.

Problem is...

1- Those are mainstream consumer cameras so most of the folks in this forum play dslr etc

2- Even the folks playing compact camera woudn't have tried all of them before to give you a useful answer... since they usually just choose one because of brand blindness, or cos it comes in pink or cos the salesman highly recommend it.

3- These are more or less similar as most of them use 1/2.3" backlit cmos in terms of hardware. Every additional feature like gps etc.... = add a bit more.

4- The rest of the sell-points are just software gimmicks... which by the way... Sony totally pwns in this area.

5 - Long zoom and high megapixels in small sensor are not recipe for good image quality

I posted earlier that either one will do cos unless you're a pro-hobbyist, guy with camera geek, pro photographer... you'll be hardpressed to find any difference from the image that they take.

Anyway, I also reckon that you would've read dpreview's travel zoom comparison test right? So you really can't wrong with either SX230HS or P9100.

Actually , zoom and mp is nt important. mp is juz a sales gimmick, i dont think you do large printing right?
when you master your camera, 4x zoom is already good enough. 10x zoom doesnt really do a great job as compact camera have small sensor.



btw , i used sony hx5v b4 , its nice. maybe you can look for hx7v/hx9v.  10x zoom optical/10x digital. 10+mp too 

gps is juz something fun to play with for the first few time you bring your camera for outing.

I have gps in my dslt but mostly i switch it off unless i am going for long distance holiday and i want to keep my pic location tagged.

enjoy hunting for camera. choose it confidently without influence from anyone, or else you will regret after awhile.