Sony Cyber-Shot RX100 VII

Sony’s pocket travel camera gains the latest autofocus technology, says Andy Westlake, but fixes none of the line’s most glaring faults

- Andy Westlake

Sony revolutionised the pocket camera in 2012, with the original RX100 that employed a 1-inch type sensor to give significantly higher image quality than anything that had come before it. Smaller-sensor cameras have now lost favour with enthusiast photographers, with only Canon and Panasonic still challenging Sony in this area of the market.

Since then, Sony has released successive RX100 generations practically yearly, while keeping all the older models on sale. The most significant updates came with the RX100 III that sported a large-aperture short zoom and a pop-up electronic viewfinder, and last-year’s RX100 VI that adopted a brand-new 24200mm equivalent zoom. This year’s iteration, the RX100 VII, is outwardly almost identical to its predecessor, with the same lens and body design. But it gains Sony’s latest AI-based autofocus system, a microphone socket and a few other interface tweaks.

The problem, as is often the case with Sony, is the price: at £1,199 the RX100 VII costs £50 more than its predecessor did a year ago. But the VI is now available for under £1,000, while Panasonic’s long-zoom Lumix TZ200 can be found for less than £600. Canon now offers an interesting competitor too, in the shape of the £849 PowerShot G5 X Mark II with its large-aperture 24-120mm equivalent zoom. So how can the RX100 VII justify its astronomical cost?

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