My advice would be to go to a shop and play around with the cameras yourself.
To write down my recent experiences from the beginning of the year (though my considerations are probably different from yours): To my surprise I didn't really like any of the DSLR offering in the price range I was aiming at because they felt kinda flimsy in the hand and ended up going with a sony mirrorless offering as it had firmer feel with a metal body and the smaller form factor, which is quite important to me as well. But to be fair chances are it is not nearly as durable as low/mid level DSLR's when it gets run over by a bus or something. As a side note I also decided to go for Legacy lenses as they should offer better quality at considerably lower cost but compromising the ease of use (should have started 3 years ago as old glass is getting more expensive by the minute). Kinda happy thus far, but there are several caveats and I am just getting started.
