Surely it all depends on the priorities of the TS. What kind of driving do you do and what are your main requirements for your car?

It will help a lot if you test drive the cars you are interested in. Just show up at any dealership and they will be happy to let you test drive their cars for free. If you can spare the time, it's best to do the test drives back to back so that you can compare the cars directly.

Paultan have some good reviews of these cars. They were very impressed by the Iriz but strongly recommended the manual over the CVT. The CVT is not so good but the manual is great, according to them.