Chia Aik Beng, Callan Tham, a handfull of tech/photo blogger and I were kindly invited by Sony Singapore on the night of August 1, 2013 to have a hands on preview of the new Sony RX100II.

While definitely a much anticipated, if sudden update to Sony's already wildly successful RX100 point and shoot camera, I took the chance to see if it was worth the hype.

Having already owned the RX100, I know the quality of the lens and its performance at f1.8, so for this short trial run, I decided to try and shoot everything at f4 to push the sensor and see how it performs at higher ISOs. On picture quality alone in low light situations, the RX100II outdoes the already nocturnal RX100 by producing images with even less digital noise while maintaining crisp, sharp pictures.

Now I'm no techie when it comes to gear. I don't pixel peep and I don't compare specs. I just take pictures and see if I am happy with the outcome and I have to say I definitely am impressed with this little bad boy.

The lens and body size are the same as the RX100 (ok the body is SLIGHTLY thicker to accommodate the tiltable LCD screen (Sony's funky cool name for it is the 3.0” White Magic™ LCD monitor with a resolution of 1,229K dots. Sounds good enough) and the "Multi Interface Shoe and Multi Terminal" aka hotshoe.

Other new additions to the RX100II are a new 20.2MP 1.0-type back-illuminated Exmor R (all these tech names!!), built in Wi-Fi and NFC.

This whole NFC get up is pretty cool too! By simply tapping the camera to and NFC equipped smartphone or tablet (sorry iPhone/iPad users... for now) you can establish a Wi-Fi connection that allows you to transfer files to your device (yes Instagram users, that means you can now transfer on the fly, edit and upload, all in one fell swoop) by using the Sony PlayMemories Mobile app (free). You can even shoot remotely from your mobile device once it's set up.

So enough about the tech stuff, here are some pictures. I apologize that they aren't, compositionally, anything to shout about, but I do hope that they show the performance of this latest gem from Sony.