Panasonic's latest advanced compact offers the fastest lens in its class.

Polished and refined design; Excellent lens with ultra-fast aperture; Plenty of useful shooting features; Hotshoe accessory port can accomodate an EVF

Screen needs to be even better to match its rivals; No articulating/flip-out screen; Smaller sensor than rivals

are serious compact cameras, with a similar set of features, such as 3 inch LCD screen, full 1080p HD video recording and full manual controls. They have slightly different resolution sensors and optical zoom.

Longer battery life; More optical zoom; Larger maximum aperture at telephoto length; Faster continuous shooting; Quicker focusing; Higher resolution screen; Better image quality at the higher ISO settings; Built-in Wi-Fi; More megapixels; More detail in panoramas; Slightly better image quality

This tiny full-featured 10.1MP camera, with a mostly metal body, boasts several benefits over Panasonic's highly-rated Lumix DMC-LX5, which it replaces. Improved aspects include the LCD screen, sensor, and Venus Engine processor with multi-process noise reduction.

Announced two years after its predecessor, the LX5, Panasonic's Lumix DMC-LX7 fits into the same market slot but now comes in a white body as well as traditional black. Its 10.1-megapixel sensor has the same resolution as the LX5's but it's a new CMOS chip, instead of CCD, which was used in the LX5.

You're looking for a pocketable digicam with a wide range of user-adjustable controls; You need good performance in low light levels; You want Full HD movie recording; You want effective image stabilisation for movies and still pictures; You'd like fast autofocusing.

You're looking for a significant update to the previous model. (The improvements aren't enough to justify the investment; You want the ability to zoom in and out rapidly, You require in-camera red-eye reduction processing.

Anyone in the market for a top point-and-shoot camera is probably deciding between Canon's PowerShot S100 and Sony's RX100 . But Panasonic is back in the game with the Lumix LX7, a sequel to one of the top shooters of 2010, the wildly popular Lumix DMC-LX5 .

This 10 megapixel compact camera with a Leica-branded image stabilised 24–90mm lens is the latest iteration in the LX range of top level compacts from Panasonic. The lens aperture range is from f1.4–2.3. An internal neutral density filter is fitted.

Panasonic has taken an interesting approach with the new LX7 - it looks more like a range finder than a typical point-and-shoot camera. The lens does not retract fully inside the camera and with the maximum aperture at f/1.4 it is one of the fastest lenses available for compact cameras.

Fast lens; Manual aperture ring; Creative movie mode

High noise above 1600 ISO

The panorama feature "will let you 'sweep' the camera from side-to-side, with an automatically stitched panorama arriving a few seconds later," says Jeff Keller at DPReview.com. "Unfortunately, all of my panoramas had vertical banding in them, which I hope Panasonic can fix via firmware update.

Outstanding photos; even in low light; Snappy performance; Great video mode with lots of manual control; Hot shoe for external flash; Beginner-friendly Intelligent Auto mode; Fits into a large pocket

No viewfinder; Short zoom; Some reviews notice a few flimsy bits

A short, sharp review of the LX7, Panasonic's compact camera with the quality, speed and features to take on mirrorless cameras. View at 1080p to see sample shots at 1:1 pixel ratio.

It seems to me that the fixed lens, compact camera game has spawned two sub species: ultra long zoom models and those with ultra fast lenses … to some they're called ‘bright'. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX7 belongs in the latter category and a dazzling model it is too: compact, light in weight and full...