Cheap trial of alternative to DSLR - want XF27mm pancake - but with X-E2 or X-A5?

Hello,

Please let me know if you think I am going down the right avenue here - this is my situation.

Since having kids I've really got back into photography - all I want to do is take great pictures of them! About a year ago I upgraded my aging Nikon D50 to a second hand D7100 with a 17-55mm f2.8 lens. Even though it's an "old" camera I love the photos I can get out of it, expecially as it is able to focus reasonable fast and accurately on two small boys who rarely stay still for a microsecond, plus it has much better low light performance. But it's so big and heavy I can rarely be bothered to take it out of the house, as usually I'm carrying a ton of nappies, water, snacks, clothes, wipes etc etc. My phone is becoming my main photographic device when out, and it struggles in many situations. I need a small and light camera, and mostly I want to make photography fun, simple and easy again - which sometimes it isn't with a DSLR.

Money is tight, and as I'm not quite ready to give up the SLR just yet, I was looking for a cheap solution to allow me to get great photos in the smallest possible package - to encourage me to actually take it outside and use it! I want a big APS-C sensor, and I've been looking at all the mirrorless ranges. I love the idea of the really small fixed lens cameras like the Ricoh GR or Fuji X70 - I certainly don't want to be taking multiple lenses out with me, and I like the fact that a prime lens is physically small and fast. But what puts me off is their lenses are all quite wide (around 18mm) and becuase I love taking close up portraits of my kids, I was looking for a focal length that could still be an "everyday lens", but was more towards the longer end of the spectrum to allow faces fill more of the frame with less noticable distortion of the nose etc.

None of the fixed lens cameras seemed to offer this longer focal length. The x100 series is better at 23mm and I am very tempted, but it is really out of my price range unless I'm going for an x100s, and I worry about how mirrorless technology has moved on since 2013. Plus I've played with an x100f, and it didn't exactly feel as small and portable as I'd hoped.

Then I looked at the pancake lenses offered on the mirrorless CSCs and found the Fuji XF 27mm f2.8 - it seemed perfect for me! Now my final choice was what camera to pair it with. It needed to be available secondhand for a couple of hundered £, and as physically small as possible. I have got my choice down to the X-E2 or the X-A5.

I like the X-E2 becuase its got all the manual dials and buttons. Also you get the "free" firmware upgrade so the software is equivalent to a 2016 camera. I'm not sure how much I care about the EVF, after all my phone hasn't got one! ? However it is still a 2014 camera.

I like the X-A5 becuase it is a 2018 camera so presumably I get a lot of the recent tech improvements, even though its an entry level camera. I also like the flippy screen as I take a lot of family selfies with my phone, so it would be so nice to drastically improve the quality of these photos! I like the fact that it is physically smaller by a good 10mm in one direction. I'm not bothered about not getting the X-Trans sensor. However it is an entry level camera, and I worry it could frustrate me at times, although I'm not sure how.

My main concern is how autofocus performance compares between them. I know they both have some form of phase detection autofocus, but it is hard to guage how they compare. Once is a 5 year old "prosumer" mid market model running 3 year old firmware, and the other is a 1 year old entry level model. Is it likely that their AF performance is actually quite similar?

Thank you if you have got this far, I would welcome any thoughs you may have!

Cheers!