Pogue Announces NEX Superior to M4/3

The New York Times just ran a column by David Pogue in which he concludes that the Sony NEX system is superior to the Micro 4/3 options. Pogue, who, in my view, is a very good columnist, at least implicitly gives three reasons for this opinion: the NEX is thinner than any m4/3 camera; the NEX focuses faster than any m4/3 camera; the NEX has better image quality (because of its much larger sensor) than any m4/3 camera.

His first point, on the size of the camera, seems largely irrelevant, as even the NEX, even with a pancake, won't fit in your pocket, and once you need to carry it outside of your pocket, how much less convenient really is a Pen or the GF1. His second point on focus speed surely matters, but I wonder if he was basing his opinion about m4/3 on the Olympus (pre firmware update) rather than the Panasonics (or perhaps Olympus post update). His third point, on image quality, strikes me as important in theory except that for those of us who rarely want the 3:2 aspect ratio of an APS sensor, the extra information from the larger sensor gets cropped away in practice.

So I think Pogue may have overstated the pluses of the NEX and what he entirely neglects is that the NEX is an interchangeable lens system without even an option for a multi-lens viewfinder or external flash (beyond the small kit version). In the end, I think he made the wrong call here.