Battle of the X-Pros

There is generally no way for the average consumer to differentiate between a design issue and a manufacturing issue. Of course it doesn't necessarily matter to some extent, but often times (not always!) a manufacturing issue is likely to effect a smaller portion of a production run.
And considering this isn't common to other Fujifilm cameras, I'm thinking that is likely to be the latter case.

So I voted with my wallet and bought an X-Pro3 a few months ago.

I also rationalize it this way - one of my all-time favorite cameras ever made is the Ricoh GR. And you can't find a forum or review that doesn't mention dust on the sensor.

And yet I have owned 3 different bodies: a GRii and then two GRiii's (one was stolen), and I have have carried them everywhere: rock climbing, motorcyle trips, to the beach, every where, every day and guess what - no dust.

So in the end I just buy what I want to use and don't worry about anything else.

Edit: I would only add that I'm not trying to be dismissive of people who have had issues, I totally get that. It's just that for me, I've weighed the pro's and con's and I'm willing to take the risk in order to use the tools I want to use.

Looks pretty close to me. Thanks.

Things “reported all over well known forums” are very often exaggerations of the real world problems. Many of those reports are the same person reporting in multiple places. Some are second hand, reporting what’s been reported. Others conflate issues caused by rough/mis-handling with defect. Enough noise is generated in this game of telephone that people who have never owned/used or perhaps even touched the camera are now warning others off. Based on…a handful (relatively speaking) of reports of failure.

I’m not denying that there have been reports, or failures. I’m questioning that the real world fail rate of the screen/ribbon connector is significant. That it rises from internet problem to manifest itself (meaningfully) in the real world. I’ve followed and weighed the reports against the experiences of owners within my circle. I’ve had hands on with the camera multiple times. I still have the X Pro 3 near the top of my wishlist — if only to have a place to mount and use my Summicron 35. The user experience and possibilities offered by the camera outweigh the risk.

I definitely read the article I quoted, and whilst Lens rentals avoided being specific they were quite clear they'd had plenty of issues with the X-Pro3. I really do hope I'm wrong, I tend to pick cameras up when they're a few iterations older so I have a pretty good idea of how reliable they are, I know the X-Pro1 has stood the test of time, it'll be a long time before I even consider the X-Pro3, if ever, based on what I've seen and read. As for the other models, I doubt they get the wear and tear on their cables in the same way the X-Pro 3 will, you have to open the LCD to review images on it, the others you don't. From my personal experience of using tilt LCD's I very rarely use that functionality, it's nice to have but I hardly ever need to use it. Ultimately, time will tell if I've read this right or not.

Avatar checks out.

If you have something less snide to say we could even discuss it.

Apologies. I didn’t mean to be snide. You introduced “chimping” to the conversation and I found the coincidence amusing.
Beyond that you’re correct. If you keep the screen turned inwards you must flip it back out when you want to chimp. Or view the playback in the viewfinder.

Fair enough, no need to apologise, it was easy to misread.

It stands to reason that the X-Pro3's screen articulation gets generally more use than other articulated screens, since you can't use the screen without moving it first.

Frankly, I'd buy the X-Pro3 in a heartbeat if it had a "normal" screen. However, don't take this as criticism. I respect the unique nature of the '3, and applaud Fujifilm for building something so daring! The fact that it's not for me has no bearing on that, after all most cameras are not for me, and that's perfectly fine.

Again, you say you’ve read it but then completely mischaracterise what it said. Lens Rentals didn’t “avoid being specific” at all, they were actually very specific on the faults they’d encountered:

“The popularity of the Fuji X-Pro3 means we’ve experienced a notable number of general issues with the EVF and have sent those out for repair, instead of in-house at Lensrentals.”

The author even notes how surprising their response was because - even after clarification - it makes no mention of the screen issue at all.

The “notable” number of EVF issues might refer to the early reported problems with OLED EVF panels failing (allegedly fixed later in firmware) or could just reflect the general complexity of the hybrid finders (common to all X-Pros), but what they DON’T indicate is any problem with the screens or ribbon cable.

This is all conjecture; I’m sure there are many who never review on the screen but just use it as a waist level finder (that’s me), and equally many who have their XT screens deployed all the time. Again, what’s telling when you actually delve into the failure reports is that there’s no pattern here in any case - of those with problems there are plenty who barely touched their screen at all, while many others report no problems after using their screen all the time for 3+ years.

There’s an actual, working poll on all three X-Pros here now - dprevived.com/t/best-x-pro-poll/2592/#post-24137

Great. I just voted!