My local camera shop had a Q-S1 on display and I asked if I could try it. I had my original Q with me and I thought it would be interesting to compare the two models. Both cameras had an 02 Standard Zoom 5-15mm lens.
The Q-S1 definitely feels noticeably larger. It's not so significant that it loses its Q identity though. Heavier, too ... yes. Ergonomically it felt about the same. The thumbwheels for shooting mode selection and function manipulation protrude outward more than they do on the original Q. They are not are not flush with the body shape. The Q-S1 responds quicker to button presses and actuations. Focusing feels faster. The levels are nice too.
Those differences are slight in comparison to the new sensor. Remember that the Q has a 1/2.3" sensor and the Q-S1 has a 1/1.7" sensor. The Q lines up of lenses become very exciting! Wide lenses suddenly become much wider! Here's a shot of the store's shelves taken with my Q at ISO 100 with the 02 lens at 5mm, wide open. I placed the camera on the counter.
I processed the picture in Apple Aperture from a DNG file. There is no distortion correction applied. Here's the same shot with the Q-S1.
Both shots are cropped down to 10 MP for a 3:2 ratio. I discovered that the Q will save an uncropped DNG no matter aspect ratio setting you have enabled. It's up to you to crop down. The Q-S1 saved a cropped DNG image. You get what you set. Again, there is no distortion correction applied to the image.
I wanted to compare sharpness and ISO noise by shooting the store display with both cameras at 100/125, 400, 800, and 1600 ISO. Here's a shot at 125 ISO for the Q and 100 ISO for the Q-S1. It's a 100% crop from almost the center. You can always tell which shot is which by the crop factor. The Q will look more zoomed in than the Q-S1.
I applied a lot of sharpening to the Q image on the left. The same sharpening on the Q-S1 image on the right resulted in a lot of artifacts. I realized that there is a lot more information in the Q-S1 image because of the lack of the AA filter! So, there is zero extra sharpening applied to the Q-S1 image on the right. I could have experimented to find a good setting but why bother when the image looks that good already? The X in the X-5 marque looks sharper on the Q-S1 to me than the Q.
Here's a shot at ISO 400 for both cameras.
The grain of the Q-S1 looks much finer and less muddy. Here's ISO 800.
A little bit of softness begins to set in on the Q-S1 as the noise begins to rise up and overwhelm the fine details of the lettering on the box. Next is ISO 1600.
Now both cameras are starting to ask for trouble. The noise still looks finer in the Q-S1 and I think that the right software tools can clean up the image well. Then some gentle sharpening could be applied to make the details stand out. Just for grins, I took the same shot at the Q-S1's maximum ISO setting of 12800.
The background took on a weird shag carpet texture. It's almost beautiful but definitely useless in this case.
I know this is hardly scientific or rigorous. It was done in fun and in the spirit of crude experimentation. Take it as a datapoint if you want ... or don't take it at all.
I would have loved to add a Q7 to the mix, especially since it should offer the same field of view. If the sensor tech from the Q7 simply passed on to the Q-S1 then I would seriously consider pouncing on it once it goes below $199 with an 02 lens. The only thing that would sway me away from a low priced Q7 would be a good price on the 08 wide angle zoom. Lenses only get more expensive as time progresses while bodies get cheaper and cheaper.