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I think I'm going to have to side with Ricku on this one. Canon went the aps-c route, which is better than another company that I won't mention, but it's still something that's been around for a while. So now we're stuck with something that has specific lenses that won't be of any use to a full-frame sensored mirrorless if they choose to go down that route in the future.
Part of being the best camera manufacturer in the world, is using your dominance in the industry to bring innovation and new ideas to the table that your competitors simply can't afford to compete with. Canon could have easily churned out a mirrorless with a 5d mark ii-like sensor in it with a similar body style to the EOS-M, and kept it priced competitively. Sure it isn't necessarily the epitome of innovation since Leica has been doing it for years, but at least it would be light years ahead of Canon's competitors. And don't tell me the glass would be way more expensive - there are plenty of good cheap Canon full-frame lenses, they could easily make new ones for a mirrorless.
It's not like the EOS-M is a bad camera, it's the what-if that's disappointing.
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Of course, this particular product could surely have been 'better', whatever that means. On the other hand so could ALL the other products in the market, so basically it's a meaningless statement. I just turned against the fact that there are people on this forum that never misses a chance to bash Canon for whatever reason. Whenever there is a launch of something they crawl out from their hiding places to complain about whatever features Canon has included in these products, or left out.
I'm not in a position to say what they should or shouldn't have done with the M. From what I understand it takes great pictures but its main shortcoming is the slow AF. It's plain ridiculous to compare it to 5000 dollar products.
I think Canon will address the what ifs in the future releases, maybe not to everybody's liking but building a new platform like they're doing here means that they have to start somewhere and to me it makes most sense to launch the volume product first. It'll be exciting to see what comes next.
I agree with you that Canon would have opportunities like basically no other player in the market to develop innovating products. I would argue that in a way they did that in 2012 though. Let's hope for an even more exciting 2013.