E-PL6 a good choice?

Roger Wiseman wrote:

I am looking for a second body to back up my EM10. I want to replace my E-P1 with a newer generation Pen. Budget is an issue. Now that the E-PL6 is available in the US, I see a very good price of $299 with the 14-42 kit lens at several stores, including Olympus itself.

I have an E-M10 and like you wanted a second body. My short list was a GM5 or an EPL-7. I went to my local camera dealer, who had neither but offered me an open box EPL-5 kit for $375, before Olympus dropped the price from $399 to $349, so I bought it.

Except for a few firmware upgrades, which you may or may not use, the EPL-6 is the same camera as the EPL-5 for $50 less.

I would sell the lens, since I have better alternatives in my kit, leaving me with a net price of $240 or $250. Is this a good idea? What alternatives are there that would be better?

Good luck with selling it. I asked my dealer how much he would give me for mine before I left the store and the answer was $20. I recently reorganized my kit by giving a couple of lenses to my son for his GX7 and selling my 35-100mm f/2.8 zoom. So now I have four small primes to use with either camera. I tested the 14-42mm to make sure it worked and it actually took some decent photos but it's larger than any of my four primes and even the mount is plastic.

Some of the pros to me are:

• Excellent build quality with a metal body. 
• Small enough to fit in a jacket pocket with one of my primes mounted (7.5mm f/3.5. 12mm f/2.0, 17mm f/1.8, 45mm f/1.8).
• Uses same BLS-5 battery as my E-M10.
• Same familiar menu system
• Same RAW files that can be post-processes in OV3
• Great for street photography because nobody pays attention to you with this camera.

Some of the cons for me.

• No EVF. In my case I have to use my reading glasses to see the LCD so I bought a like-new used VF-4 from B&H Photo $179 so my actual cost is up to $554. For that price, I could have bought an E-M10, a GX7, or an E-M5 as a second camera.
• The VF-4 or the included LM-1 flash make the EPL-5 or EPL-6 taller than the E-M10 and have to be carried separately to put the camera in a coat or jacket pocket.
• The LCD becomes washed out and can be unusable in bright light. Including the EPL-5, I have owned six mirrorless cameras form four different manufacturers and in spite of any claims otherwise, their LCDs all suck in bright light.
• Even though the monitor is a three-inch LCD, it is formatted to display a 16:9 aspect ratio. If you set the aspect ratio to 4:3 to match the sensor, you get a smaller image with a larger black vertical stripe on either side of the image. If you set the aspect ratio to 16:9, the LCD will be filled but any JPEGs will be cropped at 16:9. You still get the full 4:3 image in a RAW file but won't see it all until you edit the file.
• The single command dial is a ring that surrounds the pad and it's easy to activate one of the pad buttons while trying to use the command dial.