Who's more reliable/less prone to malfunction? - Olympus vs Panasonic

Tom Caldwell wrote:

Interesting.

I have one Olympus camera an E-M1 (hardly a good statistical sample) and have had two serious failures - rotating knob and evf. Repaired in one session it has been very reliable since and I like it a lot, but wonder why it should have needed repairing in the first place.

On the other hand I have serious multiples of Panasonic bodies (enough to be a truly good statistical sample) and they have all been rock solid reliable.

This gets me to the poll and its very obvious results.

The Olymous psyche is such that its reliability does not seem to worry confirmed Olympus users. A similar level of unreliability would have sunk Panasoinc without trace in a flurry of "I told you so's". Therefore the very determination to like overcomes all negative hurdles which are pretty real as any research of the posts to this forum will prove.

So kudos forOlympus owners who support a great company with their faith in what their products can do.

I also dispute that Olympus is nicer to use than (say) a Panasonic GX7. But this is a very personal thing and I suppose this is more of what you are used to. The E-M1 has a comforting allusion to a dslr in the way it is set up (and a big grip as that style of camera requires) but the GX7 to me is a much more intuitive camera to use. Just me I suppose and I hasten to say that the E-M1 is a fine camera and I am very pleased that I have it and have no regrets about that.

You can almost say that I have quit worrying if my E-M1 is going to break down again. But I doubt if I would ever buy another Olympus that didn't have a rock solid warranty to support the purchase decision.

Couldn't agree more.

IMO, the strong point of Oly vs Pany is that Oly is always innovating. IBIS is an obvious example, but also a stellar 300F4 vs a "very good" 100-400, or the two 7-14mm where Oly is 1 stop faster (although it came later), also shows, to me at least, that they try harder to be a more serious option for stills (not for video, though). In the meantime, Pany has relaunched many versions of the basically same zoom lenses (no, Pany, please, please, not another slowish 14-something!). The 100-300II is a nice upgrade, but just that, a "nice" upgrade, and not something COOL.

Come on, Pany, I DO REALLY REALLY WANT to buy Panasonic instead of Olympus, and only because you are more serious about quality control!! Be more committed to the system!!!

OTOH, after soooo many years of crappy quality control, I don't have hopes that Olympus will change its QC policy. Unfortunately.

L.