Good find Faldrax.
Not over the top, critical where he see's the need. Quite a good balanced review. I think there is an issue with price even at £516 from Amazon. Its a serous amount of money for a compact and you should expect the proverbial dogs dangly bits for that. Is it that much better than say, the X10, to justify an extra £200 ?
That will be up to the individual whether it is worth the money, for me I think it is as the RX100 is physically smaller making it more compact for carrying around (one of my main reasons for wanting the camera), the RX100's sensor is quite a bit bigger and the RX100 seems more polished overall. It is the complete opposite of the retro nostalgia the X10 offers though and while its lens is faster at the wide end, it very quickly loses speed to a much slower F4.9 at the long end. The dynamic range doesn't look great from what I've seen either so may not fare well against the extended DR modes on the X10.
At least price is 'fixable' - it can come down in time or more money can be saved up while many other aspects are not. Even at the price I'm quite amazed what Sony have been able to do with the RX100, I remember a few years back being impressed at Panasonic fitting a bright F2 24-60mm lens in the LX3 so for Sony to produce a camera that is physically smaller, faster at the wide end quite a bit longer up to 100mm and with a substantially larger sensor is amazing. Sony have done a much better job with this sensor size than Nikon have, the V1/J1 seemed capable of pretty good output from their same sized sensor but the benefits of the smaller sensor seemed wasted as the body/lens packages were not much smaller than existing mirrorless systems and lacked fast lenses.
As an owner of an extremely high quality camera would you pay £516 for a compact sized backup like the RX100 ? If you were in the market for such a beast of course.... and would you consider it to be "worthy" so to speak....
The D700 of course sets an impossibly high standard for compact cameras to live up to, it's left me unsure about the micro 4/3 cameras. I had initially liked the GH1 and bought the GH2 when it came out but after buying the 28-300mm for the D700 which gave it a relatively lightweight walkaround option (in comparison the 24-70/70-200mm combination) that pretty much buried the GH2. I went more with the compact micro 4/3 cameras first the GF1 and then the smaller GF3, with the release of the power zoom lens combined with the 20mm F1.7mm pancake it seemed the best pocket combination as Sony and Nikon don't offer such a compact wide aperture lens on their mirrorless systems. However over the last year I don't seem to have taken many pictures with it and like the GH2 I seem to have used it more for video which is something the D700 obviously cannot do. Before the GF1, the LX3 did not badly as a compact camera but it didn't get used after the GF1 with the 20mm F1.7 was able to offer much better low light image quality and I'm not a fan of compact superzooms, I have the Fuji F70EXR and Casio EX-FH100 but neither get used for photos, the Casio just for its slow motion capability.
I will see how the RX100 does although initial impressions are good even for simple parts like getting the camera out of my pocket. The GF3 with its power zoom lens was pocket sized but only just making it a bit of a squeeze getting it in and out of the pocket and Panasonic rather daftly did not fit a zoom control round the shutter despite planning to release the power zoom lenses alongside the GF3. I realise it would have confused users with normal lenses but it would have meant the GF3 could be used one handed. As it stands you need a second hand to get the lens cap off and to operate the power zoom lever on the lens. The RX100 has an automatic lens cap and zoom control round the shutter release making it much easier to get out and shoot one handed aside from the lack of a grip which is a poor oversight.
I can't see many Ixus owners stepping up to that so it has to be aimed at the pro/enthusiast market ?
Sony seem to be trying to go for both I'd say. The camera's options pages are extensive with considerable flexibility and the interface I believe is lifted from the Alpha cameras, not the NEX or compacts which suggests they are partially aiming this at DSLR users wanting a pocket camera.
However they clearly also want to try and get some point and shoot users, Sony clearly know the big sensor is a tough sell as many general consumers aren't going to see the RX100 as any different to other compacts aside from the high price and limited zoom. So the box mentions the sensor size, the Amazon page makes the larger sensor very clear (it's the first thing they list with pictures to show the difference) and attached the camera when you take it out of the box is a little tag boasting about the bigger sensor. They're quite right to do so of course and the camera has a lot of help tips telling you what each mode does and it has the usual scene modes and similar.
I'm not going to claim the RX100 is a perfect camera although I am very impressed or more accurately surprised at how much Sony have been able to pack into such a small body.
John