Point and shoot camera.which one?

I've been looking into buying a point and shoot. I'm a moderate user (I don't use my camera that frequently but when I do, I make good use of it!), and I want something with pretty good to excellent image quality. I was looking at the Canon Elph 300 hs, SX230, and Nikon s9100. Budget is roughly $250

The Elph 300 looks really nice, but I'm wondering whether it would be worth spending more $ to get the sx230 or s9100 even though I'm only a moderate user…

Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

Added (1). Also, one worry that I have is if I were to purchase something like the elph 300, would it get replaced by a smartphone camera, which are really starting to improve, in the near future?

Definitely get the Canon.

Depending on the type of photos you take, would determine what you are looking for. The Canon Elph 300 is great for photos of scenery, family shots, things of this nature. If you are looking to take wildlife shots and need a zoom, the canon sx130is might be good for you. Either camera has nice quality photos. The sx130is also has some manual settings which are quite nice to use.

If most of your photos are indoors, I would go with the Canon Elph 300.It reacts faster.

Www.dpreview.com has a comparison between sx230 & s9100 w/ others in the class.sx230 has more manual controls while s9100 has more zoom. Sony hx9v is another excellent one although bit more expensive.