First camera choice, advice needed !

Hi everyone !

First, as this is my first post in this forum, let me briefly introduce myself. I'm a 23 french young man (my apologies for my language mistakes and/or misuses). I'm not much of an artist myself, but I'm willing to improve!

Regarding photography, I am quite aware of how everything technically works together (aperture, exposure time, sensitivity, depth of field...). I started to give interest in photography a couple of years ago, and since then I only had some opportunities to play with a DSLR or with a good compact from time to time, and I never owned one myself. My girlfriend currently owns a (really) old Nikkormat FT-something (FTN I believe), I love to borrow it from her, and I'd even more love to own my personal toy! (boy that's a hell of an ambiguous sentence... )

So that's it for the background, now comes what I want!

Firsts things first, I'm not interested in a "full size" DSLR, since their weight and bulk would annoy me. Also, for a start, I'd like to stay away from the lenses universe : I don't want to bother carrying 3 lenses because "that one is better for portrait, that one for landscape, and that one for telezoom stuff"... I may be wrong there, correct me if I am, but I already have headaches thinking that I would have to ​choose​ a lens.

I read the recent article "Roundup: Enthusiast Zoom Compact Cameras" on this site, and I think that kind of camera would be very good for me. I intend to use my camera for both fun, not hardly studied pictures ; and for "artistic-ish" studied pictures. I'm not at all afraid by manual control, I'd probably be disapointed by the lack of it. And I'm not looking for the perfect sensor, I'd just like to be able to print some pictures in 10x15 format, or even some posters (if I ever reach that level...).

I'm interested in the Fuji X10 for its original look, its pretty good IQ, and its many manual controls, accessed via dedicated buttons and not throught endless menus. And on top of that, I read many comments saying that this camera made people "re-discover photography", "have a lot of fun" and stuff like that, and I don't know why but it affected me, and I think that a camera that can make photography vets rediscover their hobby can't be a bad camera.

But still, I can't get out of my head its competitors : Canon G15, Panasonic LX7, Olympus XZ-2, Nikon P7700... Each of them seems to be a good camera. So... I'm kind of lost, I can't make my mind so that it doesn't change 2h later!

Could you help me in my quest ?

Thanks for reading !

ps : budget is around 500€, so they all fit