Announced recently was the 8.4-Megapixel compact Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1 with 28 mm Wide Angle LEICA DC Lens and full manual control. As with all Panasonic cameras, the LX1 features two-mode MEGA OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) for its 4x optical Leica DC zoom lens. It also boasts a 28 - 112 mm focal length, Venus Engine II, five AF modes and a 16:9 wide VGA movie mode at 30 fps.

The extra optical zoom, made possible by using the center part of 8.4-megapixel high resolution CCD, further extends the zoom ratio to 5x for 5.5-Megapixel image recording in 16:9 aspect with minimal deterioration.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1

CNET today posted their review of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1 and rated it 7.6 out of 10 or Very Good. They went on to say-

"The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1 has a broad set of manual controls, image stabilization, and a wide lens and sensor crammed into a compact package.
...
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1 produced some very nice exposures and colors with lots of detail in the highlights and shadows. Only the brightest highlights blew out. Colors were rich and saturated with few color casts other than a slight magenta bias that sometimes appeared in skin tones and an overall warm tone that appeared in tungsten-illuminated scenes whether we used automatic white balance or set it ourselves. The crisp Leica lens produced sharp images across the entire frame and displayed very little in the way of chromatic aberration; there was a touch of cyan fringing around backlit objects."