By 
A couple of months ago Panasonic announced the Lumix CM1. We noted that it was a much sexier attempt at an Android camera phone than the Samsung Galaxy Camera. Panasonic showed off the Lumix CM1 at CES this year, and we were very excited to check it out.
The Lumix CM1 has a 1-inch sensor like you would find on a full-blown camera. It has 20MP resolution, a f/2.8 Leica lens, mechanical shutter, manual control ring, oh, and Android 4.4 KitKat. The phone side of things is powered by a 2.3GHz Snapdragon processor, and it has a nice 4.7-inch 1080p dispaly, 2GB of RAM, 16GB built-in storage, and microSD card slot.
The Lumix CM1 is 21mm thick, which is actually thicker than the Galaxy Camera 2. Since the Lumix is boxier it tends to look a little thinner, and more like a typical camera. The Lumix CM1 will arrive sometime this summer as an unlocked GSM version for $1,000. That means you will be able to use it on AT&T and T-Mobile. Anyone going to pick up this beauty?
For $1000? Nope! I’ll keep lugging around a phone and pocket camera (Sony RX100 1st gen).
Sony RX100 is $700, phone is like $600. That’s more than the CM1. Not to mention, if it arrives on a carrier, you can get it subsidized on-contract for probably like $250.
need to drop the contracts bro. #nocontracts #contractscostyoumoremoneyinthelongrun
I haven’t been on-contract since I was on Sprint about 4 years ago but I agree.
Thing is, if you’re going off-contract, you can’t complain about the high pricing of a phone, especially one like this.
Bought my Sony RX100 1st gen refurbed from Sony for $250. Samsung GS5 from eBay in mint condition for $350. #SavvyShopper
Van, you bring up another good point. After you make that initial off contract purchase, that puts you in a good position in the resale/used market.
If you’re into hashtags this video will be helpful to you. http://youtu.be/WgMMNF3LzCA
We are on the same page, but can you imagine how many they’d sell if the eye at or below the cost of a note 4?
Not at that price.
Bring it to $750 and I will think about it some more. I prefer my phones to have the equivalent of p&s and my DSLR to have quality type pictures.
Nope. Pain of being a VZ customer, I suppose. Surely one day VZ will be totally interoperable.
Looks promising but doubt it’ll come out in Australia.
Like most small niche products. Australia always gets left out.
True, we aren’t a big market.
We definitely are, they just haven’t realised it.
Whoo. This thing looks nice. Arguably nicer than ANY point-and-shoot camera and low-end SLR’s w/ their kit lens.
For a $1,000 they can do much better than 16 GB internal storage. That is just pathetic. That’s a deal breaker right there. 2015 is the year of 32 GB minimum or bust!
Agreed raw photos will easily chew through the limited space on that wife it will likely be more like 12gb of user space.
I’m thinking with this kind of camera, 128 would be more appropriate
I would take issue with this being “what a camera should look like”. Takes two hands to handle a camera so the lens placement at the far edge, rather than more towards the middle, will make it very awkward to grip properly.
Less awkward than holding my mother’s Rolleiflex ;-)
I am interested in buying this camphone, as I am tired of all those not quite phone cameras. My worries are the focal length and lollipop_yn.
Wow…for $1,000, you can get a MUCH better, proper handheld camera from the likes of Canon, Nikon, or Sony, all of which can connect to your phone via wifi and have built in GPS as well. What’s the point of this again?