Welcome to the reality of what happens when you order a $50,000 state of the art electronic device sight unseen and in advance. You are a beta tester. The only question is for how long.
That's harsh.
Phase have an upgrade path that has been pretty decent to regular customers, and... it always worked.
I've personally done:
P45+ to P65+,
P65+ to IQ180,
IQ180 to IQ3-100,
and all worked seamlessly out the box. Sure they added some extra features later (thank you!) but... it worked from Day 1.
it's just with
IQ3-100 to IQ4-150, that they seem to have stumbled.
It does work pretty darn well with the XF, so if that is your mainstay, then there is very little to gripe about. Enjoy!
Tech users however have been definitely overlooked, and that's a large group of Phase users, so it's very surprising.
I would not call this a disaster - the sensor and back are phenomenal advance. Phase One however needs to look hard at how it treats its partners (Alpa, Cambo, etc) and realize there are a significant group of users who simply can't use an XF, as it is not capable of what they need - maybe they work with tech movements or use stripped down lightweight hiking outfits like Alpa TC - but are loyal customers/ investors in the Phase One backs.
To switch out the back connectors and not tell your 'partners' is
wrong, to not give them sufficient heads up with pin specifications and suppliers of new plugs, so they can make cabling/ adapters well in advance, is
wrong, to not have sync protocols for tech users from firmware 1.0, is
wrong.
That's it. I think these issue will be resolved in a week or two, and every step after will be a delight as they unpack the incredible capabilities of this sensor.
I've already found the much faster ES sweep, despite the extra 50Mp, means I can shoot some movement I couldn't before, with IQ3.
Onwards!