Originally Posted by
stevage
These are great responses, much appreciated. I should have mentioned budget: I'm fairly flexible, but thinking around $500. I'd pay more if justified. Ooh, it looks like the Canon GX10 and Sony RX100 are right around that level, so that's perfect. Compared to the last time I was buying a compact (2005), things have come a long way, so it looks like I'll be getting a lot more (bigger sensor, aperture and LCD, better manual controls and image quality) and paying a bit less than last time.
Telephoto is not of much interest to me, nor are features like external flash - but battery life, wi-fi or GPS are.
Interesting question whether waterproofing is worth having. I don't really do any watersports, and I don't take that many photos in rain (who wants to stand around being wet?), but not having to worry about the camera being rained or sweated on would be nice.
The waterproof Pentax WG-3 I cited above that I bought comes with or without GPS. I chose to get the non-GPS version when I read reviews on the internet that the GPS ate batteries pretty quick.
So, if you do not anticipate taking that many photos in the rain, then this won't be you in the picture.
