Right, played with the lawoa macro, beautifully made looks to be a great performer for its price. I also looked at the 9mm, (on e mount, I didn't have my m body), again build quality is excellent. It would be very nice on the m mount cameras.
Anyway, on to the important bit...
The M50, thoughts based on a pre production camera.
Firstly I have to say that I was impressed far quicker than the m5 did last year! So that's a good start.
Build quality, it's finished in a different type of material to M5, but it feels quite well made and is comfortable to hold.
The flip out lcd is very nice, the usual responsive touch screen we have come to love from canon.
The viewfinder is crisp, bright and very clear.
Shutter response, seems really quick, I didn't notice any blackout, and this proved nice and snappy on take a shot and quickly recompose.Though as these were pre-production not even canon themselves were allowed to put memory cards in. It's quite fast for around 1-2 seconds and you hear the camera slow in burst mode. I feel it would be useable for most everyday stuff. But very difficult to say without memory card in.
Eye control, seems to work well, the camera has to be put in tracking mode to initiate eye af, as long as the face is square on it seemed to do a very respectable job, it did appear to lose the eye the more zoomed in, but again, it's pre-production. But I liked it.
Autoficus in general, I tried it the 15-45 and 55-200 first. The new dual pixel af is just excellent, moving it from the camera on display to a person continuously showed how nice and smoothly it worked. Very swift for single point. I also put my 18-135 stm on via my meike adapter and there was no real difference from the native lenses. It actually felt a bit quicker than on my 7d2 to focus! Eye af also worked with it too.
Video, the expected dual pixel in full hd was great, in 4k, it wasn't actually that bad, yes slower, but I didn't get the feeling it was poor, it was useable, crop in 4k, yes it's huge, but it's a good excuse to buy the 11-22...and it would be great for wildlife. No dual pixel in 4k down to not enough processing power, oh and it's entry level.
There were no pre-order deals on the m50 at the show. The guy at canon I spoke to wasn't able to give an exact date, but he said expect it late april-early may.
I think it is going to be a great seller for the canon tbh. And if you want one be sure to pre order to save having to wait longer. I am thinking of doing so myself.
Think that covers my thoughts. Hope it's useful.