Sounds lovely... can't wait to find out how much it's going to be... well, I'm not going to be able to afford it, but still, we can dream!

And Casio produces better cameras.

I did extensive tests a year ago, and Casio came clearly best.

Can you take pictures with it without needing 10kW of studio lighting?

My experience is that the noise in a picture is proportionate to the pixel count, and inversely so with sensor size. I tried an 8MP Canon something P&S, and it was just about useless for anything but shooting outdoors on a sunny day. Taking it indoors was hopeless, as there was more noise than picture.

There is a reason why many pro dslr's only have 6 or 8 MP's, while having a sensor several times larger than that of a P&S.

to download onto your PC and of course, like old printed photographs, view once and then never, ever look at again.

I do want one though.

>> In addition, there's a high-speed mode that will let you shoot eight photos per second at full resolution

That sounds amazingly impresive, however according to the Panasonic website (http://panasonic.co.jp/pavc/global/lumix/fx100/index.html), 8 fps is only possible at 2.5 megapixels at best.

The problem of packing so many mega pixels on a small sensor is noise. High ISO snaps on this baby will look like a snowman in a snow storm. Ony 15 frames per sec in video mode ? Thats poor even at HD res. 8 frames per second at 12 mega pixel is impresive though. My moneys says it wont out perform the Fuji F30 which is only 6 mega pixel and has superb control over noise. Maybe when people see that a 6 megapixel camera can out perform a 12 mega pixel one then the mega pixel war will end.... Who am I kidding, stand by for 20 mega pixel cameras LOL

Hmm - an "extra optical zoom" that extends the zoom by 2x, but only works at 1/4 the maximum resolution. Isn't that just a rebadged digital zoom?

Hmm, 15fps sounds a bit... crap.

The last time I looked at a Panasonic they had mechanical stabilization which was quite good. Does this one have that feature too? If so the low light shots may be better than expected, regardless I can't judge it until I see sample shots.

Based only on the number "12"...without seeing the results?

Step this way, I've got a few other electronic items you might be interested in...

No matter how many megapixels a compact has, they will never compete with an SLR with a much larger sensor.

Larger sensor means less noise, larger photo sites etc..

What's the use in having twice any many noisy pixels as before?