Canon's recent launch of the PowerShot G9 X and G5 X was designed to bolster its current range of enthusiast compacts. The G5 X sits above last year's pocket-sized PowerShot G7 X, and it would appear that Canon has taken on board a lot of comments from consumers with regard to that camera.

Large sensor compared to camera size; Fast zoom lens; Great colour rendition in JPEG; Excellent electronic viewfinder

Relatively slow autofocus; Slow to write raw files; Not truly a pocketable camera

Canon's newest point-and-shoot finds its niche.

The PowerShot G5 X is a well-designed and easy-to-use premium compact that takes good quality photos and videos and offers a nice EVF and LCD on which to compose them. It's subpar battery life, so-so lens and sluggish continuous Raw shooting keep it from being a top choice.

The PowerShot G5 X is a well-designed and easy-to-use premium compact that takes good quality photos and videos and offers a nice EVF and LCD on which to compose them. It's subpar battery life, so-so lens and sluggish continuous Raw shooting keep it from being a top choice.

Those who want good image quality in a small body that has an EVF and many direct controls.;

Those who want to shoot all day without a battery change, shoot bursts of Raw images or want to photograph moving subjects.;

The Canon PowerShot G5 X is the bigger brother of last year's G7 X prosumer compact camera.The G5 X uses the same 20.2-megapixel 1-inch image sensor and 24-100mm f/1.8-f/2.8 lens as the G7 X.

The Canon PowerShot G5 X is an advanced compact camera, one that does its best to give you something approaching the shooting experience and image quality of a DSLR in a much smaller body.

High-quality photos; Great manual control layout; Strong JPEGs

Focusing relability falters in low light; Poor RAW shooting speeds; No 4K video

The Canon Powershot G5 X is a development of the G7 X , and features the same large 20 megapixel 1inch BSI CMOS sensor, and bright 4.2x optical zoom f/1.8-2.8 lens, but adds a tilting vari-angle touch-screen, electronic viewfinder and updated design.

4.2x optical zoom lens; 20mp 1inch sensor; Good noise performance; Tilting vari-angle touch-screen; Great image quality and colour; Excellent EVF quality; Solid build quality and handling; Wi-Fi and NFC; USB charging; Rapid focus

Lacks panoramic shooting mode; Short battery life - unless using ECO mode; High speed shooting much slower with raw

"I agree with Paul's opening comments. 5 stars from me - this is the camera I've been waiting for. Other brands may look tempting, but for solid capability this is the one. Thank you Canon!"

All tests were taken using a SanDisk Class 10, 16 GB SDHC memory card, Program Mode, Flash off, Review on, ISO Auto and all other settings at the factory defaults unless noted otherwise.

Excellent image quality in most types of scenes with 1-inch image sensor; Good mix of automatic and manual control shooting options; Maximum aperture of f/1.8 is good for shooting portraits; Having a viewfinder is a great option in this price range; Electronic viewfinder is of a strong quality with...

Optical zoom is limited to 4.2x, Camera is chunky with an odd-shaped design, making it tough to fit in a standard pocket, Some control buttons are a bit too small to be used comfortably, Battery life is well below average, Built-in flash unit only can be opened manually; there's no popup flash...

With truly exceptional image quality from such a small camera, anything less than five stars may seem unduly harsh. The G5 X's performance should be better, though, and it's important to remember that – unlike the Canon G7 X and Sony RX100 IV – the G5 X won't fit comfortably into a trouser pocket.