Panasonic launches Lumix TX3 pocket camera with 15x Leica zoom

Panasonic’s Lumix TX3 makes a clear case for compact cameras in the smartphone era: keep the body pocket-sized, but give photographers a 24-360mm Leica zoom and a 1.0-type, back-illuminated CMOS sensor with about 20.1 megapixels. For anyone deciding whether a phone is enough, that combination is the point.

Panasonic Japan announced the TX3 on April 22, 2026, opened reservations on April 27, and set the release for May 21. In Japan, pricing landed at about ¥129,000, while U.S. listings were reported around $897.99. The camera sits in Panasonic’s travel-zoom compact lane, where the promise is not just convenience, but enough optical reach to handle subjects a phone would have to crop heavily.

That reach matters most on real trips and real family days. A child across a soccer pitch, a stage performance in a school gym, a street scene from across the road, or a mountain view with a distant peak all reward the TX3’s 15x optical zoom far more than a fixed phone lens. Panasonic’s pitch is that the 1-inch sensor also gives the camera a better shot at low light and cleaner detail than a smartphone can manage once the light drops or the zoom stretches out.

The size claim is just as important as the optics claim. Panasonic product pages for the related TZ300 list a body roughly 111.2 mm wide, 66.4 mm high, and 45.2 mm deep, small enough to fit the compact-camera brief that many buyers thought had been swallowed by phones. Commentary around the launch also points to one notable tradeoff in the new model, the removal of the electronic viewfinder to preserve the compact form.

Panasonic is also keeping its regional naming habit alive, with the same camera family appearing as the ZS300 in the United States and the TZ300 in Europe and Australia. That puts the TX3 alongside other current Lumix compacts such as the TZ99, which carries a 30x zoom, but the TX3 is the one aimed at buyers who want the premium 1-inch-sensor travel zoom. If compact cameras are coming back, this is the argument for why: not nostalgia, but pocketability with enough reach to beat a phone when the moment is farther away than arm’s length.