Yesterday I popped into my local London Camera Exchange. The aim was to have another play with the Panasonic LF1 compact.
I had with me my Nikon V1 with 10mm (28mm equivalent) so I could compare sizes.
As was expected size wise the Panasonic won, its much smaller then the Nikon or the Fuji, its a real shirt pocket camera and one that you could easily carry all day every day. With its small sensor its not up to the quality of the Nikon 1 series or Fuji but then it does not try to be. With a good zoom lens its one of the better small compacts around.
As they had one in the store I also tried the Fuji X20. It seems better made then the X10, and the big issue I had with the X10 was the lack of information. When using the viewfinder you had no idea where it was focusing or what it was doing.
The new X20 fixes these issues with information displayed onto the optical viewfinder, even indicating whether it has locked focus and where. There are two issues with the Fuji, first the sensor is smaller then my Nikon V1 but much bigger then the Panasonic, and the view finder is only 85% representative of the actual image being taken so you must remember to frame looser.
The ergonomics were excellent much better than my Nikon and better than the Panasonic, it is much bigger than the Panasonic, in fact its the same size as my Nikon V1 with the 10mm (28mm effective field of view) lens fitted but it does have a decent fast zoom. Of course my Nikon has interchangeable lens and the lens are small and pocketable, the entire outfit of 10-100mm (28mm-300mm effective field of view) can be carried in a jacket pocket makes the outfit much more flexible but sometimes you just want to carry a single camera and lens. Its here that cameras like the Fuji X100s, X20 etc have many advantages, still I have not written off the Panasonic yet, its a camera that can be carried all the time and I would likely have it with me, even when I am carrying my Leica outfit as its so small. The lens range of 28-200mm also makes it very compelling despite the small sensor and low quality EVF.
Its also worth considering older cameras. The Panasonic retails at nearly £300, a second hand Panasonic GF1, EVF and 20mm f/1.7 can be had for that price.