There is a long thread on dPreview from some using this name.

They claim to have borrowed a NEX-5 with three lenses from a friend at Sony for two weeks. There are only two lenses in production form, and I do think any Sony exec would do this, or that anyone obtaining a camera on this basis - with so little apparent fact in the posts - woud post this on dPreview.

Smell fish!

David

And he's talking about 3D panorama (that he didn't tried cuz "I didn't get any software with my loan, so I avoided using anything that I thought would have required it")

If by any chance this guy got the 3 lenses and he did try the NEX5, his comments are useless.

I miss the Sony Rep at Adorama yesterday. The store manager told me that he brought the NEX3, that he didn't like it that much because the plastic body seams cheap. But he LOVED the NEX5, the metal body, the functions, the AF speed (much better than 3/4, specially the Oly) and he believe it will be a hot item this summer. Now I have to manage to get one from the first batch Sony deliver...

I understand some people in the industry are nervous and won't enjoy their summer...

It could be a fake. I like how experienced user with bunch of PS cameras was lost in NEX manual for hours...

I was quite touched for some time

I read that post at DPR. He spent hours reading the manual to figure out how he could change how the camera worked--rather than yielding himself to the camera and learning how it really works. That indicates to me coming in with a bad attitude.

I've read his replies to Pako's comments and requests for a sight of the 18-200mm shots. Pako is not correct in thinking the lenses are only mockups, the samples which no-one could even touch in Croatia (kept in glass case) appeared to have glass elements and a metal body, and looked like a final engineering mockup or prototype for photography purposes. I think there was in fact only one with the NEX, and one with the (wooden mockup) camcorder.

Frankly I think this guy's ears are burning. His writing style does not indicate to me someone who would be likely to be in the confidence of a senior Sony Europe (based in the Britain) or Sony UK executive with the ability to part with a rare prototype lens to a tyro photographer friend for two weeks - or even a day.

I do know, because we were told this, that a panel of consumers got to test the cameras in some form early in 2010, in the UK. I am quite sure all signed NDAs and were also not aware of the brand of the camera (the prototypes used would have been anonymous).

What is particularly disturbing is that anyone in the position he claims to have been in should go out of his way to create a lengthy knocking-copy post on dPreview forums, without showing any picture examples, and with many riders explaining why he actually knew no more about the camera than anyone who had read a few reviews and downloaded the manual.

The fight-or-flight verbal reaction in the last phase of the thread only confirms what I suspect. It's probably an attention seeking hoax which plays to the opposed opinions of two groups of dPreview posters - anti and pro NEX. If not, it is a serious breach of trust.

Sony is a company which does not even let a statement out of its office without a management committee approving every word through their legal dept. When Paul Genge was given the task of getting photographs with NEX, he had to accompany the photographers every minute of the day. He travelled through Europe with Duncan McEwan and others and showed a few of his own shots (jokingly, but not bad!) because he had to be official 'minder' for this kit. They picked some very remote and little known places to shoot, like deserted islands on the Frisian coast.

David

I know! there must be several working copies of the 18-200 -probably in different state of development. But no reviewer had stated even holding that lens (like the 3 bad copies of the 16mm f2.8 DPR got). I don't think there must be that many copies in Europe (or the USA btw) and if one disappear for a week from somebody's desk, everybody at the office will notice!

I remember been at the KM headquarters in NJ because I need my 7D to be fixed the same day, just in time they were launching the 5D. I was having a nice chat with Phil Bradon while the technicians worked on my camera and there were no way to have a look at the camera, that was locked in one of his doors -I didn't insist either because I knew it was useless: he will never show me that camera until it get officially announced.

Same situation when I spoke with mark Weir at the Photo Plus Expo last October: He didn't told me that Sony was about to launch a model that will compete with the GF1/EP1, but the question he asked me about why I was interested in a camera like this let me understand that Sony was coming with a camera for that market. I didn't insist: he was friendly enough and I know they won't tell me anything.

None of them are my friends (like Dazed and Confused's imaginary friend that lend him an imaginary E 18-200 lens) but specially if they were my friends, I'll never go to DPR post such commentary... I read that post when it was just posted and I was about to answer to the pretentious introduction (I am an experienced user of photographic equipment. blah, blah, blah) but at the end I got lazy and just go away and didn't pay more attention to it until David noticed the incoherence about the 2 zooms.

There have been more noise than usual at DPR after their NEX's review. People that haven't post in a while shown up and people from other forums took advantage of the situation too. DPR staff reaction was a little pathetic too: Magnus got them to say that if the 16mm was a bad kit lens unless they sell it for more expensive...

Regards