Compact cameras keep getting more and more compact and few do "compact-ness" better than Pentax. A few years ago, Pentax got a lot of mileage out of a marketing campaign that boasted that its Optio S digital camera was so small it could fit into an Altoids mints tin. And it really could. Now that's small.
While the Pentax Optio A10, introduced earlier this year, may be a wee bit too big to squeeze into a tin of mints, it comes pretty close. That what this camera has to offer is so far beyond what the tiny 3.2-megapixel OptioS had back in 2003 is a testament to how much technology manufacturers have been able to squeeze into their little tin boxes lately. Along with an 8.0-megapixel, 1/1.8-inch CCD image sensor, the Pentax A10 has a 3x optical zoom, a 2.5-inch LCD with plenty of resolution, and a newly developed "Shake Reduction System" which uses two gyro sensors coupled with focusing info and a proprietary CCD shift mechanism to reduce blur caused by camera shake. Though Pentax is not the first manufacturer to include optical image stabilization in a compact digital camera, it's a welcome addition which I hope will one day become ubiquitous in all models... [read more]