I think to take notice of comments made by people who probably haven't even seen the camera let alone use it and put to put more 'bias' on their thoughts would seem strange?
I highlighted the quotes I did because they were the most popular of a lot of people with similar feelings. In the grand scheme of things hardly anyone has used these cameras so peoples concerns matter, and their concerns will be addressed when people test and use them and any issue they believe there may be will either be disproved or not.
The battery life in 'real world shooting' was found to be fine (lasts a full day and 1000+ images), I think most people would carry a spare anyway - it is a 'common' Nikon battery.
I think your final point Simon in that we should wait for a full production review is sensible - we are judging certain aspects of the camera before it is Officially released, however their conclusion still stands in that they did find it the best Nikon to date. (That's a serious point to make when you look at the great cameras Nikon has produced in it's history).
Image quality is great for cameras in this price range but maybe this camera is a step ahead of the competition - again we don't know really but the initial impressions seem to be that everyone loves it.
There has to be some way for the battery life to be measured, and the CIPA ratings seem to be it, now if people always appear to get above what they test by similar amounts then that at least is a baseline to start from. But, giving the CIPA rating as worst case scenario, as long as all the batteries from all the manufacturers are tested the same way, it gives the consumer more information to add to to make an informed choice on any purchases. More testing, reviews and user experiences will determine how the battery's perform in real life. I didn't hear any problems with the D500 batteries from initial previews/hands in articles, especially at the press events, but there were a lot of problems with users.
Btw, simply saying carry another battery sounds so easy doesn't it. This is a new battery for these cameras, the
EN-EL15b, will they be readily available at launch? I don't know and neither do you. New batteries generally cost more than the ones they replace and are scarce at first, and there are obviously no third party options from the start. "But you can use the older version of the batteries in these cameras you may say!" Yes you can, but unless you already have older versions on these batteries are you going to go and buy older versions. I would say no to this because the original EN-EL15 battery will probably not show full power and/or run out quicker in these cameras as they do in the D500. The EN-EL15a will not be able to be charged via USB so why pay for batteries you may be able to use the full functionality of the camera, battery, USB relationship as time goes on. If you did that could cause problems down the line if a battery runs out and it is not the version which can be charged via USB.
Two cards in the same body doesn't really offer full 'redundancy' though- why is no one considering the option I gave?
There are many ways to put redundancy into a system/workflow, and we have seen some from the reasonable to the absurd over the last few days, but the fact is they have chosen not to implement a level of redundancy which they offer in some of their mid > top of their range DSLR's is confusing.
Have XQD cards suddenly become more reliable, because the users who buy their D5, many of whom may truly need to rely on the redundancy of two cards, must be told to stop doing it as the only need to use one of their two XQD slots.
Btw, do you think a D6, should it appear, would have one card slot? I would bet money that it will have two, should it appear.
And I would think that if a mirrorless version of the D5, a rival to the Sony a9, were to appear that may have two card slots too. That is of course unless the message of only needing one XQD/CFEpress card gets through to the current D5 users.
