I’m not completely shocked that Sony updated the RX10: the existing model was clearly out of production and increasingly silly second-hand prices suggested there was pent-up demand. And now the work of integrating more modern components with a Type 1 sensor has been done, surely an updated RX100 will be next?

I found myself thinking about what that might look like, and the more I do, the more I suspect it won’t be what I want.

Two years ago I made the argument that there is a market for enthusiast compacts: small cameras with decent image quality and sufficient direct control to give a satisfying photographic experience. I proposed an RX100-style camera with a less-expensive sensor and the original 24-70mm equiv F1.8-2.8 lens. Sadly, that’s not what I’m expecting Sony to make, at all.

Sony is a technology company. A technology company that makes some very good cameras, but ultimately a company that believes that their cameras will always be made better by throwing more and newer technology into them.

So instead of the stripped-back camera with direct controls and a (relatively) accessible price tag that I’d love someone to make, I suspect we’ll get a camera with, at the very least, all the bells and whistles of the RX10 V. I’m going to guess it’ll have the rangier but slower 24-200mm equiv lens, the ability to shoot at framerates around double the speed of a pro-targeted DSLR and a list price of at least the $1500 that the VII’s launch price would equate to, today.

And thinking about this made me remember how frustrated I’ve always been with the RX100 cameras. Because, with their introduction of the Type 1 (13.2 x 8.8) sensor to the compact market, they represented a huge step forward in terms of how much image quality you could fit in your pocket. The JPEG color on the first one was perhaps a little wonky but that 116mm² sensor was nearly three times the size of the Type 1/1.7 (43mm²) chip that had dominated the space up until then, and that’s the kind of difference you could see in every photo.

Richard Butler

But despite the appearance, price and that short, bright lens, the RX100 never felt like an enthusiast compact. Compared to the likes of the Olympus XZ models or Canon’s G and S-series cameras, the Sony sorely lacked engaging control points. Typically I’ll use an enthusiast compact in Aperture Priority mode, so would want to be able to control the aperture value and exposure compensation: both of them settings that adjust in fixed, stepped intervals. The RX100 doesn’t have a well-placed clicking control point, meaning you have to change most settings via the vague, free-rotating ring around the lens. There’s a lag before it recognizes that your input is intentional and there’s no tactile feedback that you’ve changed anything.

The result, even before you visited the old, rather chaotic menus, was a user experience that left you feeling detached from the photo taking process: the precise opposite of what I believe a standalone camera needs to offer. The RX100 series have always been products whose engineering I admired, rather than cameras I enjoyed.

I remember being advised “stop trying to make it do what you want, and just use it as a point-and-shoot,” and finding that helped. But if I wanted to just take snaps, I’d probably use a smartphone, because the phone makers know their devices aren’t about taking control, so they’re happy to shoot and combine multiple images with every shot, letting them rival or exceed the image quality of a Type 1 camera taking single photos.

I could be wrong, of course. Sony might significantly rework the RX100 to make it fun to take control of. Or it might not make one at all. And, even if it does, I’m not going to assume that the things I, personally, want are the things that the market as a whole wants: Sony will have a much better idea of what sells and what doesn’t, and of what would-be customers are asking for.

But, while the whole thing remains hypothetical, you can’t blame me for hoping.

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I’ve always liked enthusiast compacts: relatively small cameras with built-in lenses and a decent level of direct control. A camera I can travel with but still enjoy using. But, following a halcyon period in the early 2010s, the available options dwindled to the point that it became almost impossible to buy one.

However, things seem to have moved on since CP+ 2025, when we received relatively little enthusiasm from the manufacturers we asked about the prospects of a compact camera revival. The first flicker had already come the year before, from a slightly unexpected quarter, when Leica announced the D-Lux 8, a refreshed version of the enthusiast model last updated 6 years prior.

Richard Butler

Then, perhaps even more unexpectedly, in mid 2025 Sony updated its full-frame, prime lens compact, the RX1, a decade after the previous version had been released. It was not a camera I expected to ever see, as I thought its job as a signifier that Sony ‘gets’ photography had been served, now that its full-frame Alpha cameras have received such widespread uptake. But, while some reviewers insisted it should have been more ambitious, I found the camera that actually existed to be one that addressed almost all the shortcomings of its predecessor, and added up to an excellent (albeit determinedly niche) photographers’ compact.

Signs of life

By 2026, the tone of many manufacturers has changed when asked about the market for compacts, and these past few months have seen the release of two major updates of well-liked, but seemingly abandoned models.

The Panasonic L10 is a substantial reworking of the LX100 series, eight years after the last model. It brought a larger body and the same, rather laggy zoom, but, like the RX1R III, it directly addressed the biggest criticisms we’d had with the previous versions. So again, while it’s easy for armchair R&Ders to demand more, the thing that you can buy is rather good.

And now we have the Sony RX10 V, which brings the latest autofocus and video performance levels along with a bigger battery, better viewfinder to a (comparatively) large-sensor superzoom, bringing into sharp relief the degree to which camera performance has continued to improve in the 9+ years since the last version. Even if image quality appears to have plateaued (or even peaked?) for now.

Richard Butler

All four models have been met by derision from some quarters, not helped by the cumulative effect of inflation driving the prices up, in money terms at least. Others have criticized the degree to which these new cameras depend on existing parts for some of their key components (in all four cases, the lens designs date back around a decade, to the often less-demanding pixel counts of that time). And it’s true that none of these makers have shown the faith in the enthusiast photo sector that Canon and Sony did in the vlogging market, when they spent the money to develop new optics for the likes of the PowerShot V1 and ZV-1 II. But most of them got redesigned bodies and accommodate different batteries to their predecessors, so there’s more than just parts-bin diving going on.

Another criticism we’ve seen is that you can buy an ILC more cheaply. And this is sometimes true, even if you exclude second-hand and end-of-life bargains that no new camera can ever compete with. But, even in the (very) few instances where you can closely match the spec of these enthusiast compacts, while maintaining a similar level of hands-on, direct control and competing on size, it usually turns out that the person making the criticism simply doesn’t like the concept of fixed lens cameras, which can lead to the whole point of such cameras being dramatically missed.

Richard Butler

There are times when you want the near-endless flexibility of an ILC (or ‘system camera’ if you prefer). But sometimes, some of us want a smaller camera, or a self-contained one. One that does the thing it’s designed to do, without constantly inviting the cost of additional lenses or forcing you to ponder which combination to pack.

I’m not, at this point anyway, suggesting we’re entering another golden age of enthusiast compacts. It’s clear that the cameras we’ve seen so far are updates of existing models (and not necessarily upgrades, to the extent you might hope). Sadly, I don’t think anybody is about to put the effort into delivering a larger-sensor successor to the Olympus XZ-2, which to me remains the high watermark for enthusiast compacts, in many regards. But at least, for whatever concerns we might each have about pricing or increased size, there are, after all this time, options.

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