Pentax Optio I10 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7-Inch LCD (Pearl White) Review

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(More customer reviews)Wow, I wanted to love this camera ... the aesthetics/design got me as soon as I saw the first images released back in January. I have enough old Pentaxes (including an Auto 110 Super) to really appreciate the retro look, styling and old-style logo. The form factor was actually quite nice, with a good balance, small but really nice right-hand grip, and a pleasant grippy texture. It was a bit light (plasticky) for its size.
But the picture-taking experience -- slow, slow, slow, at least by 2010 standards. I think the 2004 PowerShot I have is faster. Flash photos were terribly slow because of the preflash, which seemed to add an extra second and a half to the process. And images were soft overall, but softer as you zoom anywhere near the telephoto end. Noise and speckling was apparent at nearly all ISO speeds. As far as positives about image quality, in bright daylight, at 80 ISO (the sensor's base speed), images weren't bad and the lens did show good flare resistance.
Videos were technically HD, but at quality poor enough that it didn't seem to be worth the higher spec. Zoom in video mode is only available as digital zoom, which degrades image quality immediately.
Sliding battery cover was very fragile and seemed prone to become misaligned and I was very, very careful with it; I would always worry about its durability.
I didn't get to check out any of the really fancy features like pet face recognition. Human face recognition seemed to work reasonably well, though the photos weren't necessarily better exposed because of it. In fact, basic flash photos/snapshots seemed washed out, with very muted colors.
All in all, a very big disappointment. I knew it had fairly average camera specs (fairly run-of-the mill point-and-shoot specs for a 2010 p&s) with a cool design, but the photo quality was such a step backward from anything else I'm using today that I had to return it.

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PENTAX 16456 12.1 Megapixel Optio I10 Digital Camera (Pearl White)

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