Canon PowerShot G5 X
Announced October 13, 2015
PixelMeter The PixelMeter is our 1–100 aggregate of reviewer scores from trusted publications and creators. Weighted by source tier — not a raw average, and not PetaPixel’s own review.
Reviewer Consensus
Strong
The Canon PowerShot G5 X is a well-built compact camera that offers enthusiast photographers a high-quality electronic viewfinder, a flexible zoom lens, and a fully articulating touchscreen. While it delivers excellent image quality and comfortable ergonomics, the camera is hampered by sluggish performance, limited battery life, and a lack of modern video features like 4K recording.
Weighted from 17 reviewer scores
Pros
- High-quality electronic viewfinder and fully articulating touchscreen
- Fast zoom lens with effective optical image stabilization
- Solid build quality with comfortable, photographer-friendly ergonomics
- Useful manual control dials and built-in ND filter
- Excellent image quality and RAW capture capability
Cons
- Lacks 4K video recording and external microphone input
- Frustratingly slow performance and sluggish shot-to-shot times
- Short battery life
- Lens softness at wide-open apertures and wide-angle settings
- Not truly pocketable due to its size
- Launch price $799 (USD)
- Sensor 20.2MP 1-inch BSI CMOS
- Burst 5.9 fps mechanical
What the Reviewers Say
All 17 expert reviews, weighted into the PixelMeter score.
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- DPReview 78/100
The PowerShot G5 X is a well-designed and easy-to-use premium compact that takes good quality photos and videos and offers a nice EVF and LCD on which to compose them.
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With many more controls, a vari-angle LCD, an OLED viewfinder, a flash hot shoe, and additional enhancements to the camera body design and layout, the G5X takes what's good about the G7X and puts it in a more photographer-oriented camera body.
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Canon’s PowerShot G5X is one of the most capable compacts around, delivering much of the experience of a larger camera in a smaller, lighter and often cheaper form factor.
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Well, hopefully the images demonstrate that the Canon G5X makes a worthy travel camera. [...] But for a travel camera I found it to be fit for purpose; it’s light, easy to use and captures images of good quality.
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If you make the direct comparison between this camera and the Sony RX100 IV for video usage, then the latter will beat the Canon PowerShot G5 X hands down.
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For a user who wants that level of handling, excellent image quality and a fast lens with a good zoom range, then the G5 X is a sound choice.
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The Canon Powershot G5 X offers a larger than normal sensor, with a 20 megapixel 1inch BSI CMOS sensor that is known to give good image quality and low levels of noise.
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The Canon PowerShot G5 X is an excellent compact camera for enthusiast photographers, offering a very good built-in viewfinder, a fast lens, a wealth of options for shooting both stills and video, excellent image quality, speedy auto-focusing [...]
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The Canon PowerShot G5 X is a great camera for those who want the style and image quality of a DSLR-a-like, but don’t want to have to worry about changing lenses or carrying around a giant camera bag.
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Canon has produced a very tempting package in the G5 X. It's great to see a range of different G series cameras currently in the company's line-up, each of which appeal to a slightly different target user.
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With a wealth of physical controls, the Canon PowerShot G5 X is aimed squarely at the enthusiast photographer.
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So as you can tell, I'm very impressed with the Canon PowerShot G5 X.
- CNET 7.9/10
If I forget about the frustrating moments when I missed shots because the camera didn’t recover fast enough, then I do like the G5 X as a general-purpose camera for photographers who like to fiddle with settings but not use a lot of other features.
- Photo Review 8.9/10
The G5 X is one of the more attractive compact cameras in its category and the addition of a built-in high-resolution EVF makes it more relevant for Australian photographers than the other cameras with one-inch type (13.2 x 8.8 mm) sensors currently offered by Canon.
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The compact size and viewfinder make this the most appealing Canon G series camera on the market.
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It's great quality, feels great in the hand, perfect size for traveling, and so I highly recommend this camera.
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I am really, really pleased I purchased this camera and I think it's great for me.
