taking sharp photo graphs

I'm a beginner photographer but would like to get into the manual settings and hence a compact superzoom with manual settings. After looking at the specs, the zs20 wins on zoom, complete manual settings (hx9v only has 2 aperture settings) and better gps support while the hx9v wins on image quality (from sample pics, photos are much sharper than zs20) and longer shutter speed (30s vs 15s for zs20). However, I really would like to take sharp crisp photos and so I'm not sure. Would anyone who has tried out both cameras have an opinion on image quality?