Snap one up while you can.

The Panasonic G1 is discontinued but remaindered new samples are still out there at a bargain price.

G1 pricing at Amazon.

The replacement G2 is $770, so the equation is simple. If the following new features of the G2 are worth $270 to you, get the G2:

• A touch screen to focus the camera
• A movie mode

And, of course, the 14-42mm kit lens on the G2 is now widely reported as being inferior to the 14-45mm version on the G1, and I can most certainly testify to the quality of the latter.

The G10 (lower quality movie mode) at $540 is not really an alternative to the G1. It has an awful EVF (one key reason you buy a G1/2 is for the excellent eye level viewfinder), drops the swiveling rear LCD display (not like I care about that and nor should you – LCDs are not a useful framing tool) and has the same lower quality 14-42mm kit lens.

The G1 at $500 strikes me as a real bargain for real photographers tired of lugging around their heavy APS-C or full frame DSLRs. I have had no reliability issues after nearly 7,000 frames over the past year. If you just want a G1 back-up body, it is not sold in that configuration in the US but I would bet you can unload the spare kit lens for $200 to someone displeased with the latest version. So call it $300 for a spare body. Not bad at all.

And if you want to join the cadre of elite users, like me, you can get the blue bodied version for a modest $40 more!

Further, if you want to get lucky, it seems that an iPhone and a G1 are THE winning combination:

As usual, Windows users are SOL.