Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX90

Hey there. I'm Josh Goldman, Senior editor with CNET and this is a look at the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX90. So it looks like instead of trying to beat smart phones, camera manufacturers are looking to be friends with them by adding WiFi to some models. The FX90 is one of those models and has a built in 802.11 end radio used to connect to a WiFi network for uploading photos and video to your PC, sending them to a smartphone or a Panasonic AV devices or upload to Facebook, Flicker, Picasa or YouTube. Getting all the necessary connections set-up isn't he easiest experience and can become fairly frustrating but since for the most part, it's a one-time thing. You'll have to figure out for yourself if the headache is worth it. Once everything is set-up though, things work pretty well but again, it could be easier. Outside of the WiFi, the FX90 has some decent specs including the F25 to 59 ultra wide-angle 24 millimeter lens with a 5X zoom, a 12 megapixel high-speed CCD sensor and a 460K-dot resolution touchscreen. The touchscreen is good but if you are using it alongside a decent smartphone, you'll probably be disappointed with it's size and responsiveness. For me, a bigger issue is the camera's photo quality. A big reason you'd want to have this WiFi camera would be to have better photos than what you'd get from a smartphone and while they are better outdoors in good lighting, indoors or in low light, the difference will be negligeable for a lot of people. That makes it's lens and image stabilization the only real advantages. Overall, it's just a disappointing execution of a solid idea. I'm Josh Goldman and that's the Panasonic Lumix FX90.