This is where things get interesting! It's over two years since Sony shook up the compact camera market by putting a 1"-type sensor into a genuinely pocketable compact. The RX100 looked a lot like one of Canon's S-series of high-end compacts but used a sensor 2.8 times larger to offer a substantial increase in image quality.
Amazingly, Sony has remained unchallenged in this field for over two years, in which time it's managed to introduce two more generations of RX100. The RX100 III brought an electronic viewfinder and a more consistently bright (albeit shorter) zoom, helping it climb even further beyond the competition. That essentially unchallenged supremacy ends with the arrival of Canon's G7 X.
Like the RX100 III, the G7 X offers a 1"-type, 20MP BSI sensor mated to an F1.8-2.8 zoom starting at 24mm equivalent. The two cameras are also similar in size and offer broadly similar feature sets. Which is great for photographers, because it means the Sony finally has some proper competition.
