Interested in a compact digital camera and need your thought on selecting the best.

Digital SRL camera takes up too much space to carry around, albeit best quality photos. I need a compact digital camera for both landscape and people during day and night time.

Does compact digital camera offer enough features for such simple tasks?

The two most desirable compact digital cameras:

Canon PowerShot G9 (more features, less compact)

Nikon Coolpix P5100 (less features, more compact and looks better, costs $100 less)

How do the two compare?

I need a high quality, compact digital camera. Typically, how many photos can be written in memory?