Ricoh GXR system is officially announced (US prices revealed!)

After its exciting leak, the Ricoh GRX system is now officially announced with detailed specifications, hands-on preview and pre-orders too. (All apologies for the temporary formatting mess, it was an unintended side-effect of our chaotic style)

BREAKING NEWS: Ricoh pre-orders by Amazon herself!
Ricoh cameras so far had only been sold by Adorama, PopFlash and a couple of others in the US market. But the GXR system is now available for pre-ordering at Amazon.com, by Amazon herself! This is big news for a small player like Ricoh as Amazon is the biggest online retailer in the US market.

The prices are $550 for the GXR body, $830 for the macro lens-block and $440 for the zoom lens-block. This means that the entry-point into the system is at $990 (how convenient - $10 short of $1000) for a system with a 1/1.7" sensor (OUCH!). However, DSLR and M43rds photographers may be more interested in entering the system at the APS-C level, which would be $550 + $830 = $1380, which costs more than any DSLR (up to the mid-range level) or M43rds camera with a prime lens. Price-ouch again.

European prices are at 460, 670 and 370 euro respectively says Photoscala, so the entry-points into the system for European photographers are 830e and 1130e.

Considering the modest initial production output (see link below), and the novelty of such a system, it will be interesting to see whether photographers "bite" out of sheer curiosity despite the big initial price disadvantage. The next set of lens-blocks are coming in early Q2 of 2010 which is actually not bad considering we are talking about Ricoh, not Canon/Nikon/Sony.

UPDATE: The computer translation at Digitalcamera.jp has updates from the launch event where it says that the 2010 blocks will include a "28-300mm + telephoto" and "high-speed CMOS" (please note this is computer-translation, so it may not necessarily mean what the computer-translation says!) They do seem to verify that it is the GRDIII sensor for the zoom lens-block.

And a "gem" from the computer-translation: "impressed with the prettiness of the senile".

Ricoh GXR previews and specifications
+ 24 full-size JPEGs taken with both pre-production units at Photography Blog [HOT]
+ camera body versus Panasonic GF1 and Ricoh CX2 at Photography Blog [NEW]
+ one sample picture (loads at dialup speeds) from a close-to-production model and first impressions by Digital Photographer [NEW]
+ body-size comparisons between the three GXRs, the GRD III at Focus Numerique
+ 12-page dpreview preview by Simon Joinson using a pre-production model [HOT]
+ slide-show presentation of the annie at Photography Blog
+ dpreview announcement
+ dpreview gallery of samples coming in the next few days
+ geeky diagram at Pocket Lint
+ short first impressions at Pocket Link
+ Detailed specs (in German) at photoscala
+ dozens of camera pictures at Pocket Lint
+ DC Watch (computer translated)
+ body parts slideshow at 1854.eu
+ menus and more at Le Monde de la Photo

Production numbers from Ricoh Japan
Here we have the official production numbers from Ricoh Japan (computer-translated): 5000 GXR bodies per month, 4000 macro lens-blocks and 3000 zoom lens-blocks.

New Information
+ lens focal lengths given in the morning were 35mm equivalents, not native!
+ Next wave of lens-blocks is coming in early Q2 of 2010
+ both lens-blocks use DNG RAW
+ CIPA rating is rather modest, 410 for the zoom and 320 for the macro
+ speculation on sensor-sizes was correct, the macro lens-block uses a 12mp APS-C and the zoom lens-block uses a 10mp 1/1.75". Interestingly, the macro has sensor-shift stabilization which takes on a different meaning here since the lens and the sensor are in the same block

Opinion Poll
Now that we had a few hours to "digest" the leak and the system is official, time for another look at the opinion poll. This is a multiple-answer poll, so you can vote for as many options as you like.