Olympus Stylus XZ-2 iHS review: promising point and shoot or prospective pro-level camera?

Although Olympus hasn’t updated the lens, the redesigned body, with its tilting screen and in particular the new sensor, means the XZ-2 compares favorably with the latest offerings from rivals. Its overall sensor performance scores are a significant improvement on the original XZ-1 and easily measure up to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX7 and Canon PowerShot G15. The Olympus even nudges ahead in our Sports use case, out-performing both those models in the low-light scores. The Nikon Coolpix P7700, however, is a slightly different case. Even though it’s likely to have the same sensor as the Olympus, some performance enhancements have been made giving it the edge in Color Depth and Dynamic Range at base and low ISOs. As for low-light, the Olympus takes the lead but the scores are quite close. For even more impressive performance, particularly in low-light, larger sensor cameras should be considered, but with the exception of the remarkable Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100, few are as genuinely compact and as inherently flexible as these cameras.