The X1 is a lightweight (only 10 oz), compact (1.2 × 2.4 × 4.8″) camera equipped with a 12.2 megapixel CMOS sensor in APS-C format (23.6 × 15.8mm) with a sharp, wide-angle 24mm (approximately 35mm equivalent) f2.8 Leica Elmarit lens. Basically you get a form factor a bit smaller than an M9 with a high quality 24mm prime lens (not interchangeable) with 8 elements in 6 groups, including 1 aspherical element. The result is serious camera image quality in a small package.
The 2.7" LCD provides a 100% field of view and has Live View and precision focusing. The camera has a retractable built-in flash most appropriate for fill flash. It records RAW images in Adobe DNG format which can be opened by almost any image editing software. It also will shoot in JPG format, but as has been well documented, there is some loss of image quality with JPG and we recommend shooting RAW images.