Bridge camera desired no more

After my Pentax H90 broke, I was pretty keen on purchasing a bridge camera. I've now decided against this because I value portability so highly. Also, my little H90 is currently in the intensive care unit (it was covered by  my gadget insurance) and will hopefully come back fighting fit.

I wouldn't mind an eventual upgrade to a higher end point-and-shoot with decent manual controls. However,  the current range of compacts really struggle to match up to the Pentax H90's form factor, a key factor behind my enjoyment of taking photos. After hours of searching I found a Canon S95 which looks okay and takes great photos and a Nikon P300 which is very pleasing to the eye, takes great pics, especially in low-light, costs a lot less (£180) and has a funky, Eastern European utilitarian design. Right now, however, the price points are not there. Also, the optical zooms on these cameras are nothing special. I will hold out for a while longer, me thinks.

The form vs function issue is an interesting one because one the one hand Canon tend to make the best quality compacts but because the Nikon P300 is fun and apparantly very nice to hold, you would get more use out of it, thereby taking photos that you otherwise wouldn't take with the Canon. In this respect you can't always do a like for like photo by photo comparison because there will be instances where you wouldn't have taken a photo with the Canon in the first place!