Rant about the "new" Ricoh GR II

Smeghead · 18 Jun 2015 at 09:35

I've been really excited about a Ricoh GR update, and today they announced it. It's literally almost the same camera as the one they released 2 years ago. Same design, same lens, same sensor. Sure, it has a new engine and 14 white balance modes or something. Bull ****. Those things have virtually no noticeable difference on the image quality - certainly not as much as simply changing the sensor to the newer Sony 24MP sensor would, which they've used on their Pentax cameras, so there's no reason why they couldn't have updated it. There's no tilting screen or optional EVF, and it's using the same 16MP sensor and same f/2.8 lens. There's been absolutely no attempt to update things in any meaningful way at all; the only thing of note is they added wifi. So for an extra £200 on the RRP of the first GR, you get wifi.

It's an absolute disgrace. This is how much they respect their customers. "Just release the same thing we did 2 years ago". It's practices like this which make me wish a company fails.

SDK^ · 18 Jun 2015 at 10:55

If it's not broke then don't fix it.

GTRacer · 18 Jun 2015 at 13:27

You're not familiar with Ricoh's update process with the GR line, are you? They tend to follow a tick tock model like Intel. The 16MP+lens combo is already pretty much perfect for a snapshot camera anyway. Plus you can get a GR super cheap now.

EDIT: Just got the pre-order email from a store, the RRP is exactly the same as the previous model. £599.

Andy90 · 19 Jun 2015 at 20:46

As someone has already mentioned Ricoh tend to take an incremental approach to their cameras. What the Ricoh GR does, it does very well, a pocketable crop frame sensored camera with a bitingly sharp 28mm lens. It isn't much bigger than a packet of cigarettes and whilst arguably it is due a refresh, Ricoh realise that there isn't much wrong with it.

One thing to think about though, is a lot of people were probably doing the same thing as you by waiting to see what Ricoh were going to do. You can bet that the place that has the 'old' model for £399 is going to sell out of them very quickly...