Canon G1 X Mark II Ditches Viewfinder, Adds Wi-Fi

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Canon’s new G1 X Mark II brings good news and bad news. The bad news is that it ditches the optical viewfinder that has been found on G-series compacts like forever. The good news is that it adds a faster lens, better manual controls, a flip-up touch-screen LCD panel, Wi-Fi and NFC.

So, on balance, not so bad.

The $800 camera now sports an ƒ2–3.9 maximum aperture on its 24–120mm equivalent zoom lens, a maximum ISO of 12,800, 31 AF points and that 3-inch tilting LCD screen.

All great improvements, but I’m more interested in the dual rings around the lens, which can be used to control camera functions without digging into menus, and the built-in Wi-Fi (with NFC) which’ll let the camera play nice with your iPad or iPhone.

I used to own a Canon G9, and the optical viewfinder on that was truly awful. I’m not sure whether the original G1X had a better finder, but now if you want any kind of alternative to the LCD then you’ll need to buy the $300 add-on EVF. Nice move, Canon.

The new camera will be available in April.

Source: Canon

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