Hi! This is my first post.
First of all, I am a photo enthusiast with two small kids, so my needs may not match yours. My ideal camera would replace my old film-based reflex yet slip into my pocket, and be ready to capture that magic moment when my 1 year old daughter hugs her 4 year old brother at bedtime when only the reading light is on. Oh, and by the way, I absolutely hate flash. I would rather write down a description of the moment than burn my subjects with a flash.
I was about to purchase a digital camera, and I almost couldn't decide between Fujifilm's F30 with its amazing low-light capability yet otherwise unimpressive features, and Panasonic's LX1 with its unique features yet abysmal low-light, um... inability? You can see I was ready to buy the F30, but then the news about the LX2 came out, so I decided to wait to see the reviews and sample pictures.
Now, after seing the sample pictures refered to elsewhere in this thread, my personal impression is that the LX2 appears to have reached the level of an average digicam ISO-wise (nice shots up to ISO 200, barely usable at 400, anything over that is just marketing). So the LX2 at ISO 400 seems to be comparable to the F30 at ISO 1600 (there's no need to say that this is a very subjective and personal impression, so I won't).
Of course, I am not going to judge the LX2 by a couple of pictures in a japanese site which might be saying "this is a fake review"... I will patiently wait for dpreview.com, imaging-resource.com and other similar unbiased professional reviewers to share their wisdom before I make a purchase. Or I may end up ordering both, who knows!
On a side note, one thing that puzzles me is that the vast majority of sample pictures are taken outdoors in broad daylight. Even my phone camera performs well in those conditions.
What I really want to see is pictures taken under the following real life (or should I say "my life") conditions:
- at night (when we're all together)
- indoors lighting (we happen to live inside a house, you know)
- moving subject (kids move a lot)
- shaky hands (my wife's, mine are steady as rocks! )
THAT is the real test in my book.