@Eno Even if your right this is firmware no reason the GH5 should not get updated. I think your trying to justify this camera but frankly there are better stills cameras. In fact most of what makes this camera different is firmware. So if you total up what this has that are hardware advantages it doesn't justify it IMO. Panasonic would have been better updating firmware on the GH5 advertise the hell out of it reduce the camera price with economies of scale producing #ONE CAMERA TO RULE THEM ALL of course this is my opinion.

@Eno can you try the button combos to see if it goes into service mode?

Seems the G9 is pretty much A GH5 with slightly better Noise Reduction. I am still leaning to the GH5 because the bitrates arejust so much better along with 10 bit. If you use Noise Video slightly you will have no problem matching or exceeding the G9. Only thing troubling me is the AF improvement in video. If they have done it they should port it to the GH5 soon. I haveno need for 60fps shooting when I rarely use my GH4s high speed burst. The 6.5 stop OIS is something very cool too but the GH5 at 5 is good enough. Love the new body design in the camera though!

Panasonic Japan announced the shipment start date (in Japan?) of G9 - it'll ship from January 25.

Again Panasonic Consumer team missed deadlines. It is GH fate, they even renamed camera in last months, but it did not save it.

@Eno

Below I made a side by side RAW image comparison (with Imaging resource RAW samples) between the G9 vs GH5 at different ISO..

Well done. Looks to me that GH5 images are brighter. Maybe G9 uses lower actual iso than GH5 at the same iso reading.

Full size lab photos

Check at https://www.ephotozine.com/article/panasonic-lumix-g9-sample-photos-31727

https://www.focus-numerique.com/news/prise-en-main-du-lumix-g9-21333.html

Wow, that ISO 6400 from the video looks so clean.

Here's another video (with unspecified ISO value):

G9 beats the GH5, that's for sure.

Using the DPR Comparison, there is such a small difference between the G9 and the GH5 (both in RAW and JPG) - and it seems to me it changes depending on the area you look at, so wonder if there is some focus issues also

Doesn't look that small to me, the G9 is better, and Panasonic typically comes out with a flagship beater that has newer tech, but still sells the older tech for a premium. The way to make money is to sell older tech for a premium.