The other key point about hybrids is that they have interchangeable lenses, which means they are now competing directly with digital SLRs, particularly at the lower-cost end of the market where buyers are perhaps upgrading from a digital compact. Using a hybrid is very much like using a compact.
Olympus and Panasonic were the first to launch hybrids, Olympus with its retro-themed 'Pen' series and Panasonic with its SLR-styled G-series cameras. Samsung's NX10 is the first hybrid to use an APS-C sized sensor (Olympus and Panasonic use the slightly smaller Micro Four Thirds format), but Sony has now launched its own NEX-3 and NEX-5 modes, which have the same 14.2-megapixel APS-C sensor used in some of its digital SLRs, but in a very much smaller body.
This picture of the Panasonic Lumix G2 with the lens removed shows the key difference between a hybrid and a D-SLR. Hybrid cameras don't use mirrors (that's the sensor you can see there), which means that the distance between the back of the lens and the sensor is shorter. As a result, they use different lenses and lens mounts, though manufacturers who make both D-SLRs and hybrids provide adaptors for using SLR lenses on hybrid cameras. It doesn't work the other way round, though - you can't use hybrid lenses on D-SLRs.
The only real drawback of hybrids is their electronic viewfinders. Digital SLRs have very bright, clear optical viewfinders which are far superior to even the best electronic viewfinders available today, and this is especially noticeable when focussing manually or shooting in especially bright or dim lighting. Some hybrids don't have viewfinders at all, relying solely on the LCD on the back of the camera, though it may be possible to attach an external viewfinder to the camera's accessory shoe.
