Sony brings its blistering burst speed to RX10 IV

Sony's latest camera trend of sky-high continuous-shooting rates comes to its RX10 bridge-camera line with the RX10 IV. While it's essentially the same as the RX10 III, the update brings Sony's latest generation of hybrid autofocus systems to the camera, which it desperately needed. That plus other internal enhancements now allows the camera to hit 24 frames per second in continuous shooting with continuous autofocus and exposure.

Though 24fps is a ludicrous number of frames to have to cull through, it's the only way to get a decent AF system in the RX10 family. You'll pay for it: The RX10 III is $1,300 (£1,400, AU$2,300) but the RX10 IV is launching at $1,700 (2,000 euros; I can't find UK or Australian pricing, but the euro price directly converts to about £1,800 and AU$3,000). It's expected to ship in the US and UK in October, but I don't know about Australia. 

Its new autofocus has 315 phase-detection points clumped in the center 65 percent of the frame, with the company's High-density Tracking AF as in the latest A series models. That's nice if you shoot things moving really fast in the center 65 percent of the screen (I like to shoot at the edges, too). The 25-area contrast AF covers more of the edges, but it's meh.

The camera also inherits some upgrades from the rest of the latest RX compacts, such as high-frame-rate shooting for slow motion, and of course gets the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/NFC treatment. It also looks like the battery life has decreased, though, at least for LCD-based shooting: It's rated at 420 shots for the RX10 III, but only 400 for the IV with the same battery.

Otherwise, a very similar camera to the earlier model.