Here's my findings:

Cheap LCDs do have angle problems. I have some fairly nice Dell Ultrasharp TFTs which have no angle issues whatsoever. Calibrated with a Spyder they have served me very well.

Laptop LCDs can be okay if Spydered. I recently had loads of problems trying to calibrate a Toshiba M200 Tablet PC. If you use a Spyder, run the latest version of OptiCal (downloadable from the website). Additionally, my NVidia GoGeforce in the M200 was doubly applying the profile which messed everything up. Had to go to the monitor properties, to Advanced, and removed (yes removed!) the profile from the colour management tab. Photoshop is now fine and dandy

Now I only use LCDs. If you go for one, check out the contrast ratio (e.g. 500:1 etc), and the angle of view.

If you haven't got a Spyder, then www.Praxisoft.com have WiziWYG which does a half decent visual calibration of LCD monitors (and it's free too )

Hope that helps,
Matt

Dave,
Don't forget:
Sigma = full frame. Real gelatin filters. "Pop-eye" front.
Tamron = APS field. 77mm filter.

There's a Pentax 12-24 coming... I'm waiting for that

Matt

Dave,
I didn't think the Sigma was available in Pentax mount. Even Tamron's 11-18 doesn't appear to have a Pentax mount available when you look on their website, but Park Cameras in the UK and BHPhoto in the US both have them listed - but awaiting stock.
Pentax, of course, have a 12-24mm coming out... but when??!
Yes, a full frame sensor would be lovely, but I wouldn't mind just higher resolution, faster speed, less noise, and still on the APS size sensor!
Matt

Malcolm,
Yes, it was the startup time. Maybe I had an older Microdrive, because it was in the region of 3 to 5 seconds to boot (you could just hear the drive spin up and access). I know that MD technology has improved dramatically over even the last year, so it's probably less of a concern now.
But then, being in the micro electronics industry myself, I was never that happy about carrying around a very delicate moving part... I prefer the toughness of "real" CF cards, and compared to the MD I had, they do boot much quicker. I tend to power off the camera with my finger, almost automatically.
Matt

...but the startup time is much quicker. I hated waiting 5 seconds for the MD to boot up. Plus the time I put the *ist-D down on a table (not too hard, but made a noise), and the MD trashed itself and had to be formatted. Haven't had any probs with my Lexars.... but it would be nice to write RAW files in 0.5s
Matt

Hasn't made any difference to me.
I do however, have a dud cell or two that keep confusing me... must root them out of the bunch.
Matt

Might be related...

A colleague at work has an Optio S40, and his wife managed to drop it (not far, but a small ding in the case). It would turn on, extend the lens, the LCD would work for a second or two, then give up and shut down.
Pentax wanted the standard repair price, so it wasn't worth it, and as he had nothing to lose (and we're electronic design engineers here), he took it apart.

There's a very small stepper motor that controls the focus mechanism. It has a fairly long worm screw on it, with a screw slot on the very end. Well, he decided to give it a few turns to see what would happen. When turned on - it worked! Looked like the focus mechanism went out-of-bounds and needed a little persuasion to get back in its working range

!!Try it at your own risk!! But I thought the information might be useful, and perhaps a bit more scientific than the "non integrated kinetic percussional adjustment" (i.e. hit it )

Matt

Yes, I've had this in the past - with an ME Super and MEF.
The ASA/ISO dial is not dust proof. It is a small rotatary potentiometer (variable resister). Over time grit and dust gets in there and increases the resistance. As a result the exposure reading goes awol.

For both my cameras I managed to get hold of a service manual, and bought spare dials direct from Pentax. Fixing it myself was a bit of a pain in the neck, but kept them going for quite a while longer.

In the end you will need to replace the variable resistor (although you can clean it with some good results). I suppose it wasn't the greatest design...

Hope that explains it.
Matt

No problem George Once you've used RAW you'll wonder what on earth you did before!
Matt

I quite agree. Very "dumbed down"
I found it very noisy, especially on high ISO. But, with a bit of practise I got pretty pleasing results at low ISO. It took time, though, and a couple of reads through the guide to get the right idea.

Capture One LE, IMHO, is the convertor You can download and try it for 15days. Pretty reasonably priced too, at $99. www.ephotozineshop.com did have a copy in the mail order return section for £49 - a snip. Worth checking out their bargain sections from time to time. Again, C1LE took just a little time to master, but the results are MUCH faster. Last year I took some school panto photos in JPG. Spent hours cleaning them up with NeatImage, getting rid of hot pixels etc. This year, I shot RAW and used C1LE. Had the whole thing in the can in about 30 to 45 minutes. Couldn't believe it - and everyone else was stunned with the result (Some examples are on my ePhotozine portfolio.)

Matt