X20 - alternatives anyone ?

Exactly CA, it isn't saying much. Before I ditched my D300 and a number of lenses, two different 1855 kit lenses among them, I took a large number of comparative test shots against the NEX-5 and my first (and best) copy of the SEL1855 ... the NEX combo won, the D300 had to go. Unfortunately that lens gathered ....loads of dust over a couple months and I sold it. Basically all 4 SEL1855 I've owned suffered from BAD distortion at the wide end, most images, even shot RAW looked like shot through some sort of plastic foil (lenses?), simply unnatural for lack of a better term. The last one I've sold last week came with the second N5 and was as soft as it gets, even in the center of the image at middle focal lengths, eeek. Now with that native 16-80mm Zeiss zoom lens on the horizon the situation may change, at a cost of course but the 24MP sensor of the NEX-7 has deserved something better than those sub-performers. One more time: Wake up Sony !

As mentioned above, gotta shoot them RAW to make them sing. Lots of fun with the 24Mb ARWs from the N7, but IMO the only way around the jpg smear.