Best compact camera with $299 ready to spend - S100 or LX7 or ???

Hello, thanks for all the valuable input, below I have summarised my decision to buy the Canon S100 in case that information is useful for anyone reading this question. Paul Rivers is welcome to apologise publicly at any time.



S100 key advantages for me, in rough order of importance:

1. Colour accuracy. Two people replied saying that in their real world experience the Canon's colours were much more accurate than the Panasonic's. This was confirmed by what I saw in the following pages:


vs.

vs.

So five sources all indicating more accurate colour was too important to ignore, and real world examples are more important to me than lab reports.

2. Pocketable size and no lens cap needed. I really wanted to be able to pocket this camera, and also to feel comfortable letting my wife take it out and use it, without having to worry about the lens cap coming off or lost, and the lens getting scratched.

3. S100 seemed to beat the LX7 in high-ISO photos. See here: and
4. GPS is a handy feature. We are moving to the country soon and as we explore I hope to post some photos on google earth and the GPS will be nice for that.

5. S100 has more zoom.

6. S100 was $50 less money.

7. Familiarity with Canon and loyalty to them. I have owned Canons since their 1 megapixel A10 (still works intermittently!). Many people commented that the menus on the LX7 were confusing and annoying. The S100 menus will be familiar.

8. I wrote to B&H and they said that they got rid of all their S100 stock that was in the range that had the known fault, so the serial number issue doesn't apply.

9. S100 images on Flickr seemed to have more pop than LX7 images in a non-scientific browse of their "Most interestings".




Key things the LX7 had going for it were:

1. Faster lens beat the S100's hands down for speed. Oh well, the S100 should handle indoor fine for wide photos, while for more complex indoor photos then if I am at home I will have my DSLR available to use instead. The camera I wanted was one to grab and take with me on trips out, so much although not all of that time will be outdoors. Still, this feature on the LX7 is very impressive.

2. Better video (great comparison of the two on this site: http://us.gizmodo.com/5950679/panasonic-lumix-lx7-review-a-lovely-point+and+shoot-for-control-freaks), more video options as well as better quality. This is impressive too. However, the S100's quality was sufficient, and my main purpose is 30 sec clips of my kids to capture memories. S100 video can autofocus and allows optical zoom, which the earlier S models didn't, so that's good. S100 also has an interesting high speed video feature to play with.

3. Front ring had more features, with the aperture and image ratio selectable manually. That would be cool, I would like that, but will have to get by without it.

4. Better LCD screen.

5. In camera panorama feature.



There may have been a couple of other factors I can't remember right now, but anyway. I am sure both are good cameras and am glad owners are enjoying the ones they own. Thanks again for people's input.