For the weary pro (pocket)

I'll say after you have good C-AF, it's hard to go back to Single AF.

I`m still pretty old school and trust what I`ve locked onto myself , been doing it for decades and can feather the shutter button well enough - as I say I don`t shoot sports for work or "bird" for leisure so have no need of all that stuff, as for ridiculous FPS, may as well shoot an 8K video and clip frames thesedays (easier than rifling through hundreds of images - especially hi-rez raws) quality won`t be the same of course for birding but in journalism etc who cares

DIGIC8 was "the answer" for Canon in this regard. Trust me, after you have real C-AF via the Z9 or another Z offering with Z9 capabilities, you might change your tune

Doubtful , I`d like better low light single AF in clubs, venues etc where flash is needed for work which is the achilles heel of mirrorless compared to DSLRs - the Z7 is on par with the current stuff here .. but for me , Mirrorless is all about weight saving , WYSIWYG EVF and more than anything - in C&N at least - the far better quality of the standard zooms compared to DSLRs .

. It is truly useful for candid shooting. Yes, I did without it for years, and am doing with it sorta, on the G5X II. It can do good C-AF, in single shot. Compromises...

I`m sure that colossal "Spot" point is pretty fast in C-AF but too big to track anything at distance, I still cant believe there isn`t a real spot or at least small point in there which even the RX10 series have (and sony aren`t known for small AF points) , Pans take it down to a real spot that can`t be much bigger than a cluster of pixels, they`ve had that about 10 or 12 years . not a deal killer as I managed with the G7X one but it seems bigger than the G1X Mk1 had and of course bigger than the M50 - more like the orig EOS-M or M100

Canon is different in that they protect market segments like DSLRs from mirrorless etc. Hence them being last here to deploy a pop-up EVF.

Canon have always been more focussed on not competing with themselves even if it means not competing with the competition - hence the infamous cripple hammer which hit the M6-II hard (no EFCS , no built in EVF ) and software cripples in other cameras .

doesn't make "strong" offerings in lower end platforms like the G5X II very often. I mean it's got uncropped 4K, high FPS, aggressive lens, and costs less than an EOS RP, with the lens built-in...

then they cripple the 4K with mushy output like the M6-II`s , don`t make use of the sensors ability to do PDAF, leave off the auto-pop-out part of the EVF (though that may have been sony not selling it) and worse of all cripple the JPGs of all the fine detail which Digic-8 pulled in the M50 etc ......

BUT as I say, its still the best compromise for me in a compact , the Pan LX100-II has a better quality lens but its too short, the cam is clumsy and large and the cropped M43 sensor gains nothing over 1" (the same sensor in M43 bodies does a lot better) - the RX100 series are too compromised in areas I can`t put up with and the glass on the TZ100/200 is dreadful ,. the LX10 has no Viewfinder and the glass isn`t great there either .. the G5X mk1 is ergonomically the best with the best EVF but has old circuitry which according to DXO is behind the G7X Mk1 even and its got the inferior 24-100 G7X series lens - the G3X shot itself in the foot by having no desperately needed onboard EVF and there never was a MK2/3  update to the later sensor or CPU ......... so G5X-II it is