dstppy said:
Been sort of waiting for an update here; can anyone confirm we're on a 'new batch' yet?
I can't confirm that a 'new batch' is available, but given the time elapsed, I'd think so.
What I
can confirm that the decentering issue found by DPR was not a universal problem. My S100 was an early pre-order from Amazon (minutes after orders were possible), and arrived in late October, so I presume that was an early batch. I tested mine pretty thoroughly and found no decentering - there is some corner softness, especially at f/2 on the wide end, but it's symmetrical.
I did...ummm...'enjoy' reading the comments on the DPR forums about the issue (I don't post there, CR is far more civil). They seemed to boil down to 'DPR is awesome so the S100 must suck' vs. 'my S100 is fine and takes great pics' vs. 'anyone who says their S100 is fine wouldn't know a sharp picture if they cut their finger on it.' Nevertheless, I feel pretty comfortable saying 'my S100 is fine and takes great pics' (within reasonable expectations). FWIW, my testing setup includes, among other things, an Applied Image QA-77-3 resolution chart (an ISO 12233 chart with extra features) that costs half again what the S100 costs.