Pentax K-01

I feel really sorry for any potential camera buyer searching for reviews/tests on the K-01...... normally they'd be lucky to find
1 or 2 poor reviews but this one is being slagged off right left
and centre hundreds of pages of negative comments by established
Pentax users I can't see many newbies buying it with so much
negativity and Pentax themselves must be thinking.... With friends
like these who needs enemies They must be seriously thinking
of throwing in the towel

In the past if you didn't like something you just didn't buy it
or you were given a choice of "any colour you like as long as it's black"

Can people who don't like this camera be more open to the possibility that Pentax/Ricoh may be more on the pulse than they are? Do you really believe they haven't thought this one through? I'm sure they know the design comprises they made and the reasons why they took some but not others.

This will be cracking camera (if reviews hold up) for the money. Pentax if they market it properly 'could' do very well on this.

I'm not sure there are many who are saying it won't do well.

There are a lot of dSLR users who can't see the benefit for them, but that's not the same.

I think they might well be entirely on the pulse. The most important thing, as with the Q, is how well the K01 sells in China and Japan. Not what old fogey photgraphers in the UK think about it.

The fact that it comes in whacky colours is much more important than how practical it is with a long lens.

I am sure Pentax are not surprised that the product divides large parts of their existing market. We're not really the intended audience. For example most of us seem to hate HDR. But it is wildly popular. Perhaps we are the ones out of step with the market out there? The HDR mode on the selector dial, which Robin ridiculed a few pages back, shows where this camera might be aimed at.

Or the title of this fine slab 'o funk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lon60iv3G8

Exactly Dr. O !

As I said earlier in the thread somewhere, it's the young Chinese / Asian market that will be the driving force for all camera manufacturing in the future (unless those same manufacturers can afford to produce different models for different geographical markets). Two thirds of the world's population live here, the average age is far far lower than in the West and they are becoming more and more affluent. In China the average age of a millionaire (US$) is 38 yrs old, in the USA it's 53 yrs old, and China is expected to pass the USA for the total number of millionaires in one country sometime in the next 5-7 years (it passed Japan in 2011).

The Q whilst pooh-poohed here and elsewhere (and I admit I was one of the crowd) is on course to outsell the much vaunted Fuji X100 by 3:1 going by the latest monthly sales figures (annualised ca. 300k to 100k). The general opinion in the West was it would bomb.

All this childish talk of Fisher Price or Tonka toys is denying reality, the staid industries previously designing & selling their models to Britain, Germany, USA and other relatively conservative countries, are now finding that China/Asia drives their designs and the rest of the world can just tag along.

e.g. China is now for General Motors far and away their highest profit making centre and they have shifted much of their design dept to Shanghai. For producers of luxury items from handbags and designer clothing to almost every exotic car marque, China in 2012 will be their largest market (even though those same cars cost almost twice as much here as they do in the West). I was even reading recently about how London is trying to find ways to avoid losing out on the buying power of the Chinese (Harrods' profits rose 50% last year almost exclusively because of Chinese tourists - the average spend per visit of a Chinese tourist being in the hundreds if not thousands of £s whilst local buyers averaged around £50.

Camera makers are no different to the makers of other luxury products - now designing their products to suit their main markets of this year and the future, Asia.

There was supposed to be an episode of the Simpsons where they designed a car based on what everybody wanted.......
I think this is what they came up with

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=U9IV50KiiMI

Edit: This seems to be the episode

http://onscreencars.com/tv/the-homer-the-car-built-for-homer/

I think a while back someone from Pentax was saying they had identified a niche in the market that no other manufacturer was exploiting and was going to target it. Hence the K-01.

That is good as it means more Pentax cameras being sold.

So long as the replacements for the K-r and K-5 come out soon then everyone will be happy.

One thing I did notice about the K-01 was those rubber port covers. I have found that they tend to not go back right. Some of the videos I have seen tend to indicate this.

Please Pentax bring out the new DSLRs, it will make me and a lot of other people happier.

Thanks to all the designers at Pentax/Ricoh. What a little winner and in that colour you can see where you left it. Yup I guess it`s designed for a different market to the doddery old Thiefdom of England.

Just to be clear on that point.

1. I do not hate HDR.

2. I think any competitive camera needs an HDR mode in today's market.

3. However, these modes are crippled and essentially wrong-headed. HDR is best achieved on the computer, when all possible parameters can be tweaked at leisure.

4. HDR is not an exposure mode and does not belong on a mode dial. Especially if this means dropping useful and distinctive modes that Pentax is known for!

5. HDR is essentially a combination of drive mode and bracketing and should therefore be grouped with drive mode functions.

hillarious!

I actually like the looks..even if it is ugly... for those that want a compact camera that looks like a classic d-slr there is the oly om-d released.... only time will tell how the two line up in image quality (who am I kidding the k-01 will blow the oly out of the water) and final sales....

I'm buyin one...maybe two if that 25 min video limit is fixed on this side of the pond..

Just did a Google image search on "Pentax K-01". Try it. This camera is certainly generating massive interest, which must be good news for Pentax. I seriously think that on balance the design will do more for sales than if it had been retro. Pentax is thinking ahead with this future design classic. And still puting image quality first.