dpreview.com has a preview of the newly announced Olympus E620 dSLR which has some of the features of the E-30 in the size nearer the E420 and with optional vertical grip and underwater housing.

Features include:

• 12.3mp sensor, 4.0 fps, swivel LCD, image stabiliser
• 7pt AF including 5 cross-type (not 11pts as with E-30 but better than 3 pts in E420/520 and better than only 1 cross-type as in the Canon 450D/500D)
• three mode live view AF as with E-30 including face recognition
• no top panel LCD, 1/4000th sec (not 1/8000th as with E-30), x-sync 1/180th (not 1/250th as with E-30), 95% field of view (not 98% as with E-30)
• 6 art filters as with E-30 but no electronic spirit level
• multiexposure mode allows 2 frames (not 4 frames as with E-30)
• 4 aspect ratios (not 9 as with the E-30)
• 521g incl. battery (E-30 is 768g, whilst E-520 is 552g)
• lower capacity battery (BLS-1 instead of the BLM-1)
• no PC sync socket or DC-in socket
• still no movie mode as with Nikon D90 or Canon 500D – perhaps Olympus is reserving that for a Four Thirds Micro body which should do movie mode much better with its improved contrast detect live AF capability

Sounds like it will kill off the E420 and E-520 pending price competitiveness, as it combines the advantages of each of these and then adds features of the E-30.

How does it match with the Canon 450D?

450D has 9 pt AF but only 1 is a cross point and requires f/2.8 or brighter for cross point to work – and most EF-S lenses do not have a f/2.8 or brighter aperture

no built-in image stabiliser in the 450D – a big advantage to the E620

450D has 3.5fps whilst E-620 has 4.0fps

450D max. timed exposure only 30sec while it E620 offers 30sec and 60sec

450D allows only +/- 2 stops exposure compensation, while E620 offers +/- 5 stops

many other features lacking on the 450D such as swivel LCD, art filters, multiexposure mode, face recognition live view AF

MUCH better lenses designed for cropped sensor dSLRs available for the E620

450D is approx. same weight as the E-620

How does it match with the new Canon 500D?

• the 500D is much the same as the 450D BUT:
• 15mp sensor, 3″ 920,000dot LCD
• HD video at 20fps BUT as with Canon 5DMII and Nikon D90, no AF during video capture
• HDMI out
• ISO 100-1600 (expandable to 12800)
• face detection AF in live view as with E-620
• so nothing really innovative, and still no in-built image stabiliser or swivel LCD!

The UK Photo Safari Group have prepared a pdf report on the E-620 you can download here