What would Asian and European women think?

tt321 wrote:

Tom Caldwell wrote:

There is also the point that manufacturers sell “cheap” dumbed down gear quite deliberately to the entry level market who have no ambition to progress very far.

If they did that, which they seem to have done for years, should they not also tune the prices accordingly? Unless, of course, the cost of making the dumbed down versions is the same or even higher than that of making a more normal version. For all we know they could be full fledged versions with artificial disabling.

Good point, I suppose certain things with every camera sold are much the same. Basic design, tooling and assembly, plus warehousing and marketing. Where it might be different is in the qualtity of R&D needed and the cost range of major components.

The latest sensors, good evf and lcd and (say) lots of magnesium and metal in the construction would add to the price quite considerably - as would high quality wheels, etc.

In the case of ultra small bodies e could possibly add tricky assembly issues which might add to the build cost.

But there is a spectrum of marketability. At the low end the product price can be squeezed a bit higher because the market is used to paying. At the top prices the margins an be squeezed by the market willingness to pay and the volume sold.

A good example of all this was the GM series which obviously was the result of a lot of R&D and made with high quality lasting construction in mostly metal - I belive that it had a magnesium internal body frame.

To a great extend the RRP is some sort of juggle between the cost of the product run and jut how quickly it will sell. Both the GM1 and GM5 hit the market at quite high RRP and probably did not sell particularly well until the price was reduced to what the popular market was willing to pay. I suspect that Panasonic did get their R&D investment back but very likely did not make as much money as they would have liked from it. I suggest that it was not a loss making exercise - just not as profitable as they would have liked.

After finding out the hard way about how much money the market would pay for a camera of this type/size they quite cynically made the camera for that price slot where they could get the profit margin they expected - it continues as the annually made over GF7/8/9/10 which gets almost zero extra R&D, a few flim flams to difference it from the previous model and a cheaper plastic construction (which no doubt is robust enough) - being a little larger is only a necessity brought about by use of more plastics. Furthermore it uses many common parts designed for the GM series. But there can be no doubt that the GF10 is a much cheaper product for Panasonic to make and give a good profit margin. The GF10 could be sold for quite a lot less and still make as much for Panasonic as they ever did at the reduced price market for the GM series. But Panasonic resolutely only makes annual runs of the made-over GF series and does not discount other than selling off earlier models left over at slightly reduced prices.

There is no need to discount as the market accepts that the GF7/8/9/10 is priced at what is reasonable for an entry level camera to be. A sort of win win for both consumer and manufacturer. But not necessarily best value, best lasting construction, or best technology.

It is just a pity for GM fans that what they would like to pay for one of these little gems will only get them something very like a GF10. Or an E-PL9 I suppose. Almost zero R&D investment.