Panasonic LX3 availability

August 9, 2008 12:29 PM

I'm drooling over Panasonic's new Lumix-LX3. According to retailers it ships in "late August." What do you think that means? Why doesn't it have a release date?
posted by mrunderhill to Technology (8 answers total)

Any number of reasons, but Panasonic probably isn't going to be putting out unrealistic release dates, particularly as they've given the date so recently (near the end of July). If they're saying late August, I'd reckon on the first few days of September at the latest. Production is probably underway by now, but maybe at the time of the press release they didn't have a clear enough estimate of production speed to bank on a definite launch date. Just a guess of course.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 1:09 PM on August 9, 2008

I think the real question is why you thought it should have a specific release date. The norm is for consumer electronics to have a vague window of release like "late August." It's probably not worth the cost and effort to arrange a proper simultaneous release across a territory—it's not like a whole lot of people are going to line up for a midnight release or anything like that.

unless you're Apple, in which case any product you release has its own built-in set of line groupies
posted by chrominance at 1:46 PM on August 9, 2008

Sorry, I have nothing helpful to add. But on paper, this camera looks amazing. 24mm wide angle, relatively good MP/server size ratio, image stabilization, manual focus, RAW mode, and tiny. Wow.

I really am partial to the color you get from a Canon, but this little guy is a scraper, for sure.

Image gallery, in case anyone else was curious.
posted by paisley henosis at 1:48 PM on August 9, 2008

you may know this, but many (the majority?) of new models are announced/released aug/sept because the photokina trade fair is in (late) september. so if you buy this as soon as it comes out you may end up disappointed when something even shinier is announced a few weeks later (i agree it looks like a great camera - i own an lx2 and am very happy with it, but this looks significantly better). in particular, the micro 4/3 standard sounds very interesting if you want a compact but good quality camera (although since micro 4/3 was only announced a few weeks ago it's unlikely that anything announced at photokina will be immediately available).

also, you posted about a d40/d80 a while ago. this will not match those in image quality (apart from detector size the lx2, for example, has a fair amount of barrel distortion, and this is going even wider). nor will it make you a better photographer... it certainly won't have the burst speed for shooting winter sports!
posted by not sure this is a good idea at 3:22 PM on August 9, 2008

I agree that it looks like a hot little camera, and this isn't actually an answer to your question since I don't know when it's coming out, but if you don't want to wait you might also look at the Canon G9. Compare them here.
posted by The Bellman at 3:37 PM on August 9, 2008

((By the way, I've owned three Lumix...en? Lumixen? Lumixes? Anyway I've owned three of them and in my experience they are great, feature rich cameras that are built like crap. They have all kinds of nifty bells and whistles and very good stats and take good pictures (though not as good as Canon point and shoots) until they break which, if you treat them at all roughly, is within the first year. This is also not an answer to your question.))
posted by The Bellman at 3:41 PM on August 9, 2008

while i've not had any problems with my lx2 (otoh it's only 9 months old) i will post again to mention the ricoh gx series. they go as wide as the lx3 (ie wider than the canons or nikons or lx2) and appears to be extremely solid. i bought the lx2 because it was reduced - if i had the money for a new lx3 i would look carefully at the ricoh gx200.
posted by not sure this is a good idea at 3:54 PM on August 9, 2008

Before you buy any camera, go into a store, fondle it, take a couple pictures (with your own memory card), come home, look at them and only then, if you're satisfied, go and get it.

The thing is, there are 'reviews' of the LX3 online, previews, etc. but at the end of the day, all they're doing is dissecting a press release.
posted by jedrek at 5:07 AM on August 10, 2008