While Zeiss is best known for its lenses—especially with Sony’s cameras and smartphones and Nokia’s premium smartphones—the German brand has yet thought of making their own in-house digital camera until they announced the ZX-1 back in 2018. Aside from being Zeiss’ first full-frame, fixed-lens compact camera, what makes the ZX-1 unique is that comes with Adobe Lightroom CC, letting you edit your photos on-camera before sharing it to different platforms.
We haven’t heard much about the ZX-1 since then, but DPReview spotted a B&H listing, indicating that the ZX-1 is open for pre-order with a $6000(~Php 290.3K) price tag (the price was removed as of this writing). That sounds very expensive for a full-frame, fixed-lens compact camera, but do note that Sony and Leica’s offerings hover around that price range. The Leica Q2 costs $4995(~Php 241.7k) in B&H, while Sony’s RX-1R II—which comes with Zeiss optics—will cost you $3298(~Php 159.6k).
What added premium you get with the ZX-1’s exorbitant price tag? Aside from being the brand’s first in-house camera, you are also paying for a customized version of Android that is focused more on photography. We still do not know if it comes with the latest version of Android, though it will be interesting to see what customizations Zeiss made to the Android software used for the ZX-1.
