Lack of up to date pancakes in M43?

alwinvrm wrote:

I own a Fuji X system, but I notice that I prefer to take my Fuji x100 or Nikon 1 system for street / general photography.

So the thought came that an Olympus E M10 with a pancake and sometimes a portrait lens might be a flexible alternative for the x100 that is smaller than the Fuji X system.

When researching I found that the Pana 20mm 1.7 has outdated focusing speed,

It's a bit exaggerated and depends on the body. On a Panasonic body it's less of a problem. It's not fast enough for fast action, but It's fast enough to get a sharp focus on a walking person. And in normal situations it's fast enough. It's just not instantaneous like other lenses.

However, I noticed that on my E-M5 III, AF is a lot less reliable. Sometimes it can hunt or fail to focus for no apparent reason. Unfortunately, I don't remember using it on E-M10 and I no longer have that camera to check. But I had no such problems with GM5.

while the Pana 14mm and Oly 17 mm had less than stellar IQ.

The super tiny 14mm is a very good lens. Optically, I would say it punches above its weight. Don't know what you mean by "less than stellar IQ", but if you expect image quality of a $1000 pro lens out of a $200 tiny pancake, then of course it will not deliver that.

As for the 17/2.8, it is mediocre, sure. Also, its AF is even slower than that of Pana 20 and even noisier. And it's also been discontinued for 2 years already or something like that. I'm not sure you can easily buy it brand new anymore.

I was somewhat surprised that there seem to be few modern pancakes for M43 while small size is apparently an argument used in favour of M43.

I'd love me some pancakes, but non-pancake M43 lenses are still very small. And there's a lot of them. I also wish they all be pancakes, but they can't all be pancakes.

For all practical purposes is my XE2 wit 35mm 1.4 as big as am Olympus om with the Pana Leica 25mm.

If that works for you, then I don't see a point of looking at M43.

I want to try M43 but the system gives me no obvious roadmap or compelling argument for my simple and no tele desires.

There are some clear advantages of M43 over Fuji system when it comes to lenses. But if you just need a prime or two and Fuji has you covered, then those advantages are meaningless.

I hope I am wrong and missing a few things; please point out what (products) I missed because I real feel drawn to M43.

It's hard to advise when we don't know what you want other than your mention of Fuji's 1.4/35. BTW, isn't that one of those old designs with super slow AF? Isn't it like a Panasonic 20 of the Fuji world?