There's a lot of talk about the price, but back in 2002 (13 years ago! Holy heck!) my Canon S45 cost just under a thousand Australian dollars. And that was for their flagship "compact" camera, which was a 4mp camera with VGA resolution 15fps video! The RX100 IV looks to be about $1300 in Australia, which seems nuts, but has features way beyond anything else you can put in your pocket at this time.
You're right, but I always get pulled up short by reality checks. I still have a glossy print floating around, 8x10" of the detail of a chromed steel bicycle lug, shot with my first digital camera, a 2.3mp Panasonc pocket camera. And damned if that print isn't absolutely brilliant. I can't see any pixels in it. I know the differences and I like the new sensors mostly for the DR and high ISO capability, but the megapixel thing never really moved me. I was happy at 10-12, I'm ecstatic at 16. When I shot with 24 it was because that's what the camera I wanted happened to have, but overall I prefer the tradeoffs with the 16mp in my DF over the 24mp sensor used in the D750 and Sony's various 24mp models.Storage is cheap, but the time involved in processing and handling video just to grab stills is prohibitive. I don't see a point in it unless the primary aim is to capture video. Finding the 8 mp stills to be acceptable seems like a denial of the progress in digital photo technology over the past decade or so. The 8 mp images may be acceptable on screen or in small prints in most cases, but even on screen I often like to see details, and not for pixel-peeping, but for the details themselves. I'm very much looking forward to 100 mp or more, so my digital images can start looking more like the 4x5 film images I've seen here and there.
Canon G2 - $900 in 2001 = $1200
Canon S40 - $800 in 2001 = $1075
Canon S45 - $600 in 2002 = $800
I just learned from someone on DPR that the new RX100 IV now has a minimum shutter speed option in the auto-ISO menu. And they let you set a minimum up to 1/3200... This is a feature that revolutionized my whole approach to dealing with exposure a couple of years ago and I figured that ALL cameras should have it and would within a couple of years, but surprisingly few still did. Sony is usually pretty slow to this kind of thing, so if they've seen the light on this, that's VERY good news. Fuji has gotten most of the way there. Ricoh has a limited implementation that they could make very useful SOOOOO easily, but don't seem to want to. Canon is there, but with a really odd and limited implementation. Nikon and Samsung and Leica have had great versions of this function for at least a few years now. Olympus and Panasonic - where are you???
I don't know but assume that the new RX10 II has this as well? And I'd imagine any new versions of the A7 and any RX1 update will. Maybe the new A7RII already does? In any case, I think this is great news and will put Sony back into my list of cameras to consider going forward. Not in the market for anything now or short term, but someday I'm sure I will be and I'm really glad to see this feature finally getting close to SOP for most new cameras...
-Ray