



Regular readers of The Verge will no doubt be familiar with the argument that there's only so many ways to design a tablet, smartphone, or ultrabook, but none of that makes the RX100 look any less like Canon's S100. And why not? Ever since the S90 was introduced back in 2009 Canon itself has barely iterated on its excellent premium compact design — 2010's S95 and last year's S100 refreshes were virtually identical. The basic idea of a simple, compact black box with a control ring surrounding the lens is present and correct here on the RX100, though Sony has added a few flourishes of its own. There's a line running between the strap loops that lends a distinguished design, along with a blue Zeiss logo (just a sticker, unfortunately) placed to the bottom right of the lens. The RX100 is slightly thicker than the S100 at 36mm thick and the lens protrudes a little more when closed, but it's no less pocketable at 240g and just 102mm on the longest edge. Build quality is excellent, with an aluminum body that almost feels like it was carved right out of a single block of metal, though the form is broken up slightly by a ledge that runs along the top on the back of the unit. This makes it easier to access the mode dial, which is a little stiff otherwise.

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The RX100 is a completely self-contained unit, with almost no options for expansion. There's no flash hotshoe here, nor will you find a NEX-style proprietary expansion port. This is a fairly major limitation for anyone considering using the RX100 as their primary camera — you'll never be able to boost flash power, attach a viewfinder, or even use an external microphone.

With that in mind, it's at least reassuring that the onboard options are pretty good. The tiny pop-up flash is surprisingly powerful across the zoom range, and can be tilted back for effective light bouncing. The 1,229,000-dot LCD screen is also really good, and uses Sony's WhiteMagic technology for better outdoor visibility. We've seen this before on phones like the Xperia P — it adds a white subpixel to the standard RGB arrangement, which really does make a difference in brightness and, Sony claims, power efficiency. I do wish the LCD was tiltable, but it's understandable that it wouldn't be on such a diminutive camera.

Since you can't change lenses on the RX100, it's important that Sony include a good one. You shouldn't have too many complaints about this Zeiss effort, though — while it can get a little soft in the corners, it's fast, bright, and generally resolves a lot of detail. Distortion is a little strong at the wide end, though you'll only notice when shooting in RAW as the camera corrects everything for you in JPEG. I'd also have liked a little more flexibility in the zoom range; starting at 28mm isn't wide enough for a lot of shots, and the 100mm telephoto reach only offers 3.6x zoom from there. Canon's S90 and S95 had similar (albeit slower) lenses, but the S100 moved to a more versatile 24-120mm equivalent and it'd be good to see Sony do the same in future. It's also worth pointing out that you only get the f/1.8 aperture at the RX100's widest setting — it drops to f/2.0 at 29mm and by 50mm you're limited to f/3.2. Really, though, the lens is a pretty impressive achievement when you consider that it's faster than any of the considerably larger offerings for Nikon's 1 system.

To get a better idea of what Sony has achieved with the RX100's hardware design, take a look at this chart of various competing camera sensor sizes:



