I just bought the Sony HX400V (with the GPS feature) the other day mainly as a grab and dash camera as by the time I'd popped my pin into my phone, selected camera and got it to focus the moment would have passed.
I spent a while looking at the various bridge cameras and I was also looking at the smaller compacts which have x30 zoom and a 1" sensor. The larger sensor compacts (and I think there is a bridge with one also) was getting too expensive. I found the zoom speed and more importantly the focussing ability on many of the other cameras not very impressive, a big grip of mine with my little Canon IXUS, whereas the HX400V focuses very fast and can even lock on in near darkness. It's got full manual control and excellent stabilisation. The x50 zoom is brilliant but as said it's more the focusing that I'm impressed with. The button layout is easy, it's got a manual zoom ring which doubles up as a manual focus (which you can set to zoom in to help with focusing), hot shoe on top (with a cover for it) and also does 24fps movies which look brilliant when combined with the excellent stabilisation - looks like you are using a steadicam rig! lol
Image quality is pretty much as expected from a sensor of this size, I wouldn't expect to print above A4 but it's fine for web use. I've just spend a few hours with loads of Beagles and every single shot has perfect focus, many of which I just pointed and pressed the button without waiting to see if it were in focus etc so that's pretty impressive with fast moving dogs. The LCD screen can tilt both ways which is good for getting the camera down low at the same height as the dogs for photos and video. This is more important to me than a sensor which allows me to zoom in for a fraction extra detail.
The electronic view finder is ok and it has a sensor which automatically detects your face and switches off the main LCD screen which helps battery life. Speaking of which, you can charge straight from a USB cable just like your phone which is handy if charging in the car etc. There is a downside to this sensor, when tilting the LCD for low down shots you have to hold the camera a little further away from you otherwise your body or legs will be close enough to switch the screen off and switch to the EVF. I've not found a way to disable the sensor yet but you could mask up the sensor and then press the manual override button which is a workaround.
So far very happy, I think I made the right choice rather than going for a bigger sensor with a smaller zoom. As said, it's just a private use camera so I don't need to worry about going big on the detail with image quality, I'm more interested in actually capturing the moments in focus! I'll get some samples from today up if you want.
