Sony RX100 Mark I review: Is it worth it in 2025?

River Deben, Melton, Suffolk, January 2025

They say the best camera is the one you have with you and recently, I’ve found that I rarely have any of my “big” cameras with me unless I’m out for the purpose of photography. That usually leaves me with only my Google Pixel 8 , which is better than no camera at all, but what’s the point of having a suite of cameras at home if they’re sitting not being used for most of the week?

I’ve owned a few Olympus and Lumix Micro Four Thirds cameras in recent years and while I love their more compact form, none have been truly pocketable, except perhaps in a large coat pocket. This inevitably means that I’ll end up carrying these cameras in a case or just leaving them behind when I know I’m likely to need both hands spare. As such, I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that a compact design is perhaps the most important attribute for an everyday camera if I’m to have any chance of taking it with me wherever I go.

When I saw a Sony RX100 Mark I for a good price at London Camera Exchange, then, I decided to snap it up and find out if this high-end (albeit rather old) compact could be the answer to my problems. In many ways it was, although one or two shortcomings stop me from universally recommending it in 2025.

Westminster, London, January 2025

Let me start with the good points. The image quality from the RX100 is still very good and it holds up well even thirteen years after it was released in 2012. For me, it’s a very obvious step up in quality compared to using my phone and its RAW files are very easy to work, with with plenty of dynamic range. If I’m shooting in poor light at higher ISO, I’ll sometimes convert the images to black and white, but more often than not, I’ve been very satisfied with the output of its 20MP 1in sensor, which offers enough resolution to allow for a little bit of cropping when necessary.

The RX100’s 1in sensor strikes a perfect middle ground, in my opinion, creating shallow enough depth-of-field (when shot wide open and close up) to achieve some subject isolation, but still making it easy to keep everything in focus when desired by stopping down a bit. In fact, this is a reason I like Micro Four Thirds Cameras, too - while it’s impossible to achieve the wafer thin depth of field of full frame cameras at normal focal lengths, it’s much easier to get all of a scene in focus while shooting handheld.

River Deben, Woodbridge, Suffolk, March 2025

The lens is great too. I’m not one for using sharpness charts, but I’ve rarely been disappointed by the results I achieve with the first-gen RX100 and its 28-100mm equivalent range is perfect for my style of shooting. Although some people prefer 24mm at the wide end, as you get with the newer Sony RX100 VA and Sony ZV-1, the extra 30mm of reach at the long end is very useful when it comes to picking out compositions in the distance.

And then there’s its superb build quality. Although it doesn’t have the dials and buttons many enthusiasts look for on a camera, it’s undeniably a nice thing to look at. With a construction made entirely from aluminium, the Mark I is the smallest of all the RX100 series, principally because it lacks the features that made later models a bit larger such as a hotshoe or EVF.

This makes the RX100 Mark I very pocketable indeed. And it’s in this sense that I found the RX100 the bigggest departure from any other camera I own - I can stick it in my coat pocket when going for a bike ride and forget I have it on me until I need it. This feels like a superpower in some ways, given the camera has a focal range comparable to most kit zooms you buy with a DSLR or mirrorless camera.

Melton, Suffolk, December 2024 (taken on bike ride)

However, as much as it's the camera’s greatest strength, the small form factor is simultaneously one of the RX100’s biggest weaknesses, in my view. The aforementioned, sleek aluminium body doesn’t have anything about it that makes it easy hold on to and I was always nervous that I might drop it as a result. You can buy Sony’s stick-on grip cheaply, but having seen this grip used on later models, I’ve always felt it somewhat undermines the camera’s good looks.

A wrist strap is surely the easiest way to overcome the fear of dropping your precious camera onto hard tarmac below, but frustratingly the example I bought came without the OEM wriststrap and the camera’s lug is so tiny that I couldn’t attach a Peak Design anchor loops, much to my annoyance.

As I’ve already alluded to, the other downside to owning a compact camera is that you must do without many of the dials and buttons enthusiasts like to have when making adjustments quickly on the fly. The control ring on the front of the camera can be used to adjust zoom, aperture or shutter speed depending on the mode you’re using, but it gives no tactile feedback, so I found it no replacement for the physical dials on my larger Olympus cameras.

Melton, Suffolk, December 2024

While I’ve never struggled to compose a shot without an EVF, I certainly missed having one. I think this is the main trade off with having such a small (albeit capable) camera. The Sony RX100 allows you to get superb results, but to achieve its diminuitive size, you sacrifice many of the features that make using a larger camera a joy. Of course, Sony took care of this shortcoming by adding an EVF to the RX100 from Mark III onwards, but you can expect to pay more than double the price for one compared with the RX100 on test here.

Another reason that I’d be hesistant to recommend the RX100 Mark I is its age. Although many examples (including the one I bought) have survived this long, I can’t help but feel that my RX100 feels much more likely to fail than comparable aged cameras I’ve owned before. The retractable lenses on compact cameras, in particular, feels like an obvious point of failure and the control wheel on my example also feels a little temperamental, so I’m not sure how much punishment it’ll endure.

I don’t know if that worry is justified, but it makes me a little nervous nonetheless. If these cameras were inexpensive, it wouldn’t be such a big concern, since you could just pick up another one. However, with the RX100 Mark I still going for upwards of £275, any type of mechanical failure would quickly leave you in a tricky predicament - I’d imagine any repair bills would quickly become hard to justify.

Woodbridge, Suffolk, December 2024

Which brings me to the other reason I’d hesitate to recommend the RX100 to everyone. The cost. While I understand this was an expensive cameras when released, the resurgence of compact cameras appears to have resulted in the value of the early RX100 models having become a little overinflated on the used market - remember this, is a camera that came out when the iPhone 5 launched, in 2012.

It’s worth pointing out that, although it’s pitched as a vlogging camera, you can buy Sony’s ZV-1 for approximately £400. For that extra £150 outlay, you get effectively the same lens and sensor of the much newer RX100 VA, along with the tech and processor of the most recent RX100 VII. Sure, there are compromises — it has a plasticity body, no control wheel, built-in flash or EVF — but if you’re just concerned with buying a compact camera that can take superior images to your phone, I think that might be where the value lies at the time of writing this.

What do you think? Are you still using the first-gen RX100 in 2025? I’d love to hear what you think of it.