If you only want to take good quality pics and are not really into photography go ahead with one of those Bridge cams. A friend of mine bought the nikon P500, and I would say it does really nice pics!
But if you have no prolblem with a bigger cam, get a small dslr like the nikonD3100 or similar. way better low light performance and has also all the programms to make shoot pics easy.
I myself started with the D5000 and after a fit of reading and trying, some nice shots came out
