I have to say, they are excellent samples, for me among the best dpreview samples I've had the pleasure of perusing, and they have given me a fantastic insight into this fascinating new camera.

Please, please, please try to maintain this quality in future (if I had to pinpoint a review where you failed to "get" the camera it would be the Ricoh GX series. You mostly missed the quality of this camera [as a former D-Lux4 and GX-100 owner I can honestly say I would choose the Ricoh over the pan-leica 90 times out of 100], but your reviews award the advantage to the DL4/LX3 by a wider margin than, I believe, is deserved).

It may also be worth noting, I first viewed the X1 samples on a work PC (with uncalibrated monitor) and initially had major concerns regarding DR due to the dark shadows and blown highlights in some images. I have also have seen similar comments in the forums here.

But later I reviewed the images on a calibrated Mac, presumably, with a wider gamut screen, because without doubt, the images hold up much better under scrutiny. Perhaps you have replaced the samples, but either way, I find most of them really exceptional, as I say, among dpr's best.

Clearly, as a $2,000 camera, some people may want to compare it with a $2,000 camera. Please don't take it down that route. It is a large sensor compact and that is the bracket in which it must be judged. Which, today, means it's only peers are the Sigma DP1 and DP2. There simply are no other large sensor compacts in existence (obviously there is E-P1, E-P2, G1, GH1 and GF1, but having handled all but the E-P2, I would give none of them the label "compact"). Note this is also probably the time to give the DP-1 and DP-2 the retrospective kudos they deserve.

-Najinsky