Pros
- Class-leading images
- Handy manual controls
- Shoots RAW
Cons
- No OIS
- Very expensive
- Feels a little cheap in parts
Key Features
- 4.7-inch Full HD LCD
- 20.1-megapixel 1-inch sensor
- Snapdragon 801 2.3GHz CPU
- Manufacturer: Panasonic
- Review Price: £749.00
What is the Panasonic CM1?
The Panasonic CM1 is a camera that happens to do everything an Android phone can do. Yes, including phoning your mum and sending YouTube cat video links over Whatsapp. Panasonic calls it a Communication Camera, but feel free to think of it as an Android phone with photos that beat those of every other phone to date.It would be easy to make comparisons with Samsung’s phone-camera experiments like the Galaxy K Zoom and Galaxy Camera 2, but the Panasonic CM1 is different. Here, there’s no optical zoom, which some think is the main difference between phone cameras and dedicated cameras.
What’s actually more important is sensor size. The Panasonic CM1 has a 1-inch 20-megapixel sensor more than four times the size of the sensor in the Samsung Galaxy S5.
So while the £799 price makes the phone seem ridiculous, you need to consider that Panasonic’s own 1-inch sensor Panasonic LX100 camera costs £700 itself. And you’re not going to be sharing many cat videos with that.
The Panasonic CM1 is not going to work its way out of a tiny niche, especially with no plans for mainstream subsidised distribution in the works. But we like what it’s doing.
Panasonic CM1 – Design and Handling
Like other heavily camera-centric mobile phones, the Panasonic CM1 is not remotely thin or light. It’s 15.2mm thick, blooming out to 21.1mm by the camera lens. We call 10mm thick phones chunky these days, so don’t expect something that will slinkily slip into your pocket.It size is closer to the optical zoom cameras we’ve seen over the last couple of years, the last being the Galaxy K Zoom, which is actually a little slimmer despite using a zoom lens. The Panasonic CM1 does look smart, though, if you can get on with its hybrid style.
Like Panasonic’s LX and TZ series compacts, it has a stark two-tone silver-black finish. From the front it could almost pass for a 'normal' camera.
If you’re thinking of jumping ship from an iPhone, though, you do need to consider its sheer girth. Panasonic has sensibly used a slightly smaller-than-average 4.7-inch screen to keep the dimensions sensible, but at 204g it’s 40 per cent heavier than the Samsung Galaxy S5.
Given the lofty price, the Panasonic CM1 doesn’t feel all that expensive in places either. Its front has a textured leather-effect plastic finish, but this feels a little cheap as it’s not rubberised or softened. It’s obviously plastic when you get your fingers on it.
When shooting at least, we’d have preferred to see an area of rubbery grip on the front, although naturally this might feel a little odd when the Panasonic CM1 is used as a phone. There are no easy solutions here, but we’re not sure the hard plastic finish was entirely the right choice.
Panasonic’s relative inexperience in the field shows in some areas, too – Panasonic designed a series of Eluga phones back in 2012, but they were never actually released in the US or UK. The CM1 has a tray for its Nano SIM slot and a cap that goes over the Micro USB socket. We found both pretty awkward, and even ended up damaging the SIM tray just trying to put a SIM in. A word of warning: be careful.
It’s not looking so hot for the Panasonic CM1 so far. The finish is a shade cheap and the phone – sorry, Communication Camera – predictably is far chunkier than more normal Android phones. However, there’s a lot to like in the hardware, too.
Our favourite part, and something that feels almost as important as the large sensor, is the robust control ring that sits around the lens’s perimeter. This, in tandem with the solid two-stage physical shutter button, give a traditional camera-like feel that just isn’t found in any other phone.
A proper manual control dial also proves this is the most serious phone-camera hybrid yet. The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom and Nokia Lumia 1020 offer some manual control, but it’s all found within touchscreen menus, adding another layer between you and your photos. Here, with one hand on the control wheel and another on the shutter button, you get the real camera experience. It’s more than just point ’n’ shoot.
There’s also a flick switch on the side – or the top plate if we’re looking at the CM1 as a camera – that takes you instantly to the camera app. Plenty of phones offer quick ways to get to the camera, but with the Panasonic CM1 there’s a pleasing tactility to it.
Panasonic CM1 – Screen and Features
The Panasonic CM1 has a screen much smaller than that of other top-end Android phones. A 4.7-inch display makes it closer in screen size to the self-consciously ‘small’ Sony Xperia Z3 Compact than the sort of phones that sell at remotely similar prices.As we noted earlier, this helps the CM1 from going from feeling like a chubby phone to a small motor home you have to fit in your pocket.
However, for a screen of this size it’s technically very solid. It has a 1080p display where most at the size still have 720p screens, including the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact. This gives it a really quite excellent pixel density of 469ppi. Sharpness is excellent, and we found the tone of the screen to be great all-round, offering a good way to preview your photos.
We should note here that the phone offers far greater sharpness than even the most advanced camera screens. In camera speak, the CM1 has screen resolution of 6,221k dots, where the £2400 (body only) Nikon D810 has just 1,229k dots to its rear display. Here’s a little secret: one reason cameras still list their viewfinder and screens resolutions in this way is because standards are much lower than elsewhere (the D810’s rear display is only 640 x 480 pixels).
Next to the very best Android phone screens, though, the Panasonic CM1 will not shine. It won't challenge the Galaxy Note 4.
Still, it has all the features we expect of a higher-end Android. Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi and GPS are a given, but the Panasonic CM1 also features NFC, not seen in all phones. Predictably, it lacks some of the flashier extras seen in some top-tier Android that don’t place as much emphasis on the camera. There’s no IR blaster, fingerprint scanner or heart rate sensor.
Panasonic CM1 – Software and Performance
The Panasonic CM1 is clearly not a phone that needs to try too hard to set itself apart in areas other than the camera. Sure enough, Panasonic hasn’t altered too much from standard Android apart from areas that affect the camera.You get a bespoke camera app, but otherwise the interface is pretty much standard Android 4.4.4. All the software flashiness of the LG G3 and Sony Xperia Z3 is stripped away, leaving the practical, but likeable, Android KitKat.
Of course, we’d prefer to see Android 5.0 Lollipop installed, especially when we have little faith Panasonic will update it. Especially given the small numbers of units the CM1 is likely to sell.
Still, the stripped-back approach works. There’s not the usual bloat you’ll find on big-name phones, and performance is very good, as is often the case with near-vanilla Androids.
The Panasonic CM1 has a very capable CPU too, although not one that is cutting-edge anymore. It uses the 2.3GHz variant of the Snapdragon 801, the same processor used in the HTC One M8.
Since then we’ve seen top-end phones move up to the Snapdragon 805, like the Galaxy Note 4, while the 64-bit Snapdragon 810 is due to land in the next few months. However, the 801 can still do everything you’ll ask of it and the Panasonic CM1 was never intended to be a phone for those who like to spend afternoons gazing over leaderboards of benchmark results.
There’s pretty sound flexibility for installing apps too. Although the 16GB storage may seen pretty stingy when a 64GB OnePlus One costs just £269, the Panasonic CM1 does have a microSD card slot. And it’s SDXC compatible, meaning you can use cards up to 128GB – available, at the time of writing, from a surprisingly reasonable £65.
Panasonic CM1 – Camera
The Panasonic CM1 camera is the main event. It has a 1-inch 20-megapixel sensor with a 28mm f/2.8-11 lens, bearing Panasonic's familiar Leica DC licensed branding.There are several points of interest here. Not only is that resolution pretty high, the sensor is far larger than even that of the Nokia Lumia 1020. The aperture is variable too. The vast majority of phone cameras have fixed apertures, the few exceptions including zoom camera like the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom, and the Nokia N86 from way back in 2009.
It’s
not just the hardware that has the edge, either. The Panasonic CM1 has a
camera app with more in common with the OSes of dedicated cameras than
smartphones. It offers PASM manual modes that make great use of the
control dial on the front of the camera. Alternatively, touchscreen
controls are available.If you’re not familiar with these PASM modes, they are manual and semi-manual modes that give you control over core parameters. P stands for Program Auto and lets you control exposure, leaving shutter speed and aperture controlled by the CM1.
A
is Aperture Priority and gives control over the aperture width of the
lens. S is Shutter Priority, handling aperture while you select shutter
speed. And for the real pros, Manual lets you set aperture and shutter
speed independently.In the phone world, just having control of the shutter speed is a luxury. The Panasonic CM1 goes several steps further.
The control, both in the software and hardware, makes the CM1 not just a good replacement for a high-end compact camera but also a steady option for really quite serious photographers who don’t want to take their DSLR around 24/7.
It’s
not necessarily intimidating either – these options are simply there if
you want them. Point ’n’ shoot photography is the default as ever with a
phone camera and Panorama, Scene and arty filter modes are on-hand.The Panasonic CM1 also offers a decent array of composition guides. While most phones offer a grid overlay, the CM1 has 8 or 9-grid splits and horizontal/vertical gauges plus a histogram read-out (which can be switched off).
The Panasonic CM1 has its own dedicated image processor, which Panasonic calls the Venus Engine, and in our experience it provides quite excellent performance.
While the CM1 doesn’t have phase detection autofocus, we were happy with the speed with which it locks on using contrast detection. Colour reproduction and exposure metering are both very reliable too, something that is far from a given even in top-tier phones.
As
for image quality, the Panasonic CM1 is simply in another league
compared to most other phone cameras. Its dynamic range is far greater
than an iPhone 6's camera, with performance at low ISOs that it only
slightly worse than the £700 Panasonic LX100 advanced compact.
iPhone 6 on the left, CM1 on the rightIn fact, according to our lab test results – which we run for dedicated cameras but not normally phones – the CM1 actually offers more detail than the LX100 throughout its ISO range, with less colour distortion.
It’s only in dynamic range where dedicated 1-inch sensor cameras get you better performance. As you can see in the chart below, there’s quite significant drop-off past ISO 400, where the LX100 retains a respectable 10EV at ISO 1600.
ISO
is another area where the Panasonic CM1 separates itself from the pack.
It offers a very solid native ISO range of 125 -12,800 with extended
settings of ISO 100 and ISO 25,600 (these are seen as not offering quite
optimal performance by Panasonic). The Sony Xperia Z3
made a big fuss about its 12,800 ISO, but the problem is that such high
ISOs become less useful the smaller a sensor is, meaning Sony has to
resort to excessive processing to avoid images looking like a sea of
noise.The Panasonic CM1 really has a right to such high ISOs. Although, to back-track a little, you’d only want to use 12,800 and 25,600 in emergencies. Stick to ISO 1600 and under and you’ll be able to produce some stunning shots, while there’s very little difference between ISO 100 and 400 in our tests: both are virtually noise-free.
Thanks to the larger sensor, low-light performance is far better than that of virtually all phones. While there’s more to camera performance than sensor size, it has a big part to play.
Here are some samples taken using the Panasonic CM1:
However,
this is far from a foolproof camera, and we do see plenty of scope for a
Panasonic CM1 mk2. It does not have optical image stabilisation,
meaning that while you can produce some super low-light shots, you will
often end up with blurry images unless you keep your hands very still.OIS would make careless night shots far better, boosting performance into yet another league above the competition. Of course, the simple physics of fitting this extra hardware into such a slim frame may be incredibly difficult.
Given
the lack of stabilisation, we grew to miss the lack of a 1/4-inch
tripod mount on the camera. However, it should fit into a third-party
phone grip mount easily enough.For those keen on getting more serious with their Panasonic CM1, the camera is able to shoot in RAW and .RW2 formats as well as standard JPG, giving you more scope for post-processing.
We’re also very happy to see 4K video capture included. While it’s becoming pretty common in top phones, it’s far form a given in higher-end cameras – Panasonic has become one of the key pioneers in this field. Once again OIS is missed here, and it doesn’t seem to use particularly dynamic software stabilisation either.
One other dropped feature is the flash. The CM1 does not have a traditional Xenon flash, but an LED one – the kind normally used by phones. It doesn’t offer great range, but will do the trick for late-night portraits.
Panasonic also also shunned what is becoming the fastest-developing area of normal mobile cameras – the selfie. It has a 1.1-megapixel front camera, which is fairly low-res by any standard.
Panasonic CM1 – Battery Life
The Panasonic CM1 has a 2,600mAh battery. That is not huge, but we also need to remember that the phone has a smaller screen than other phones right at the top of the Android price scale.We were reasonably happy with its stamina too, ending up with 20-30 per cent charge after a full day’s use. There’s enough of a buffer here to let you use the phone without feeling like it might run out on you before bed time, although it’s not among the longest-lasting Android devices.
The Panasonic CM1 is an unusual phone, and unlike most other recent camera-phone hybrids, it doesn’t try to squeeze its way into becoming a somewhat-mainstream option. Its £799 price is stratospheric, and at this point it seems there’s zero chance of it being available with carrier subsidies that would soften the impact of that bullet.
Panasonic is instead to sell the CM1 in selected specialist camera stores, where its unique (to phones) abilities are likely to be fully appreciated.
So should you buy it? We love what Panasonic is doing here, and it really has fit much of the imaging capabilities (minus zoom lens) of a dedicated compact — and one that costs at least £500, not £200. It’s an amazing achievement, but there are plenty of areas to improve, and both the physical and financial sides of the CM1 are pretty hard to swallow.
Here’s the rub: the original Sony RX100 is now available for around £330, or even less on import, and that would leave you enough change from the CM1's asking price to buy an even higher-performing phone like the LG G3.
You need to question whether you need this extra degree of convergence, because we’re not sure the sacrifice of having to carry around a phone this chunky every day is necessarily worth it for many. Still, Panasonic has really pulled this off in other respects, and from a company with little phone experience, that’s impressive.