Officially K-3?

...(His primary reason for switching was AF problems though so I wonder if the K3 had been launched sooner, he might have stayed with Pentax )

First of the video reviews starting to surface:
although is preproduction model

This, is not related

SRS are selling the K-3 body for £1099. Should be under £1k IMO. Think i'll wait a few months for the price to drop.

SRS are also offering a £100 part exchange bonus, so there's your £999.00 right at launch.

Is that like a leg or an arm ?

I can see that John, but I bet they'll offer a low price for my K-5 IIS.

http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/products/k-3/feature/

Page 2 gives a very good explanation of the AF system. For example:

Auto tracking**

to trace the subject’s movement in tandem with the new scene analysis system

The PENTAX Real-time Scene Analysis System accurately detects the color, shape and movement of a subject, and keeps monitoring it throughout the imaging process. With the help of this innovative system, the K-3 automatically shifts the AF point to trace the subject’s movement with great speed and precision. Thanks to a wide AF area covered by 27 AF points, it maintains the sharp focus on the subject, even when it’s moving at high speed or when you are using the high-speed continuous shooting mode.

** This function is available when the camera’s AF mode is set to AF.C (continuous) or AF.A (auto).

Join you in that boat Phil!
£999 is an absolute bargain for a Camera with that build and feature set, it'll be £999 soon enough without the trade in bonus, I'm hoping within about 6 months it'll settle to maybe £899 street and I'll try to get one then. I think the D7100 RRP is set at £1099 and it's avaiable from WEX now for £839. Nowhere near the spec of the K3 in my opinion...

Agreed Jules. One of my friends has asked about my K-5 IIS, so I don't need (or want) to trade it in. Need to check the number of actuations and see what its worth. Probably circa £550?

How much will the new BG 5 cost? Probably something outrageous like the BG 4

Looks a great camera. Good to see they didn't follow other manufacturers by reducing the number of external controls. If anything they have increased the number. Extra features all sound useful too. Have a feeling this will be a hit with the reviewers.
Will be a good few years before i get my hands on one though, having only just got a MkI K5.
Oh good to hear its slightly bigger. The K5 is okay but i was looking at my sisters ancient Nikon D70s and boy is that a beautiful camera to hold. Perfect sized grip. Hoping the K3 grip is a bit bigger than the K5.

Is that ANY camera like the car part exchanges

I wonder how many K5's will appear in the classifieds at £100, might be tempted to get a back-up and I could junk the worthless K7

The gave me a good price on a k-5 last year when they had the extra £100 extra trade in for mkii.

They also offered me a reasonable amount for my k-5 mki against a k-3 but as i am not in a rush this time i will try the classified first.

K-3 sounds like a very fine camera indeed, and at a fair price point for a launch. I am confident that it will attract people into the Pentax fold, and that has got to be a good thing.

I will, of course, buy one as soon as funds permit; it offers significant development improvements over the K-5. But recent events mean I will have to wait; just bought a 40mp 'camera' (no not a 645D :cry then only to find out that my dear partner has been issued with redundancy notice . Life's a bit..

Still, I have my K-5 in the meantime; it remains a wonderful camera. Off out now to take some pics of Oxford Botanics.

Still, if you're lucky the nudes shooting season might be about to kick off - now we'll be able to get 'em up & running around!