This doesn't look like a fair test, but bear with me....
After about three years of trusty use, my little Lumix FX9 broke. This is the camera I carry to art fairs and events and slip in my pocket whenever I need to snap something at better quality than my iPhone. It performed like a champ (in fact this was a camera Annie Leibovitz gave to all her friends when it first came out).
As someone who loves to buy new gadgets, this was an opportunity as well as a sadness, so off I went in search of the next great thing! As the FX9 has long been replaced by newer models, my criteria were that the camera had to slip into my back pocket and it had to take good pictures.
My first try was a little Sony which distorted straight lines so badly it went straight back to Best Buy. Next was the smallest Lumix which was just a little too small to handle easily and now lives happily in my wife’s handbag. I then tried the littlest Leica, the C-Lux 2 (also too small and noisy pictures) and the next size up in the Leica range, the D-Lux 3 (above) which is not only problematically large for a pocket camera but does just terribly in low light situations.
By this time I was properly mournful of my old camera and went on Amazon where to my surprise I found plenty of FX9s both new and used. So I ordered a barely used one for $149 and now I feel restored. Apart from revealing my psychosis, the whole point of all this is to recommend getting an FX9 while they’re still available. The "more pixels doesn’t necessarily mean better pictures" thing may not make sense logically but it does in practice.
P.S.
I’m aware that I didn’t try any Canons. Something about their design just didn’t work for me. But any comments or recommendations on the best pocket size digital camera are welcome.