Quote Originally Posted by Photo-John
As far as I know, the only difference is that beautiful red dot

For all practical purposes they are the same.
Don't know how important they are but I have discovered some differences.

Apparently the Leica lenses on Panasonic cameras are manufactured by Panasonic under license from Leitz. Those on Leica cameras are manufactured directly by Leitz. Do the lens standards match? The chips in the Leica cameras have also been preprogrammed to match Leica parameters particularly in the area of colour. The camera bodies seem to be individual to either Leica or Panasonic and therefore with differences.

Ronnoco