Pentax Optio S10

You probably haven’t seen much from Pentax in the market, but there's something to the Optio series that could make you sit up. Gone are the days when people swore by Kodak or Sony in the ultra-compact category. Of course, these brands are tried and tested, but the concept of buying in today’s times tends to transcend the ordinary.

The Pentax Optio S10 is a functional solution for those woes that you may experience every day with your compact camera. While the features fails to include most of what the competition is offering, the S10's biggest selling point has to be the effective point-and-shoot.

The camera is stylish, yet toned down to simplify things. The chrome silver body with a patch of gray in the front is all you get from the S10. It’s a 10 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom. Not much by today’s standards, but this ultra-compact does give some good results. It measures 86 x 53 x 20 mm, and weighs about 116g.

The S10 is equipped with a 2.5-inch LCD screen, which is surprisingly visible out-of-doors during the day. With a 1/1.8-inch CCD, the 10MP sensor offers good contrast and detailing with a maximum resolution of 3648 x 2736 pixels.

The back of the camera features the zoom keys, with the review button just below. The navigation D-pad also duals as burst shots, flash mode, macro, super macro mode, and the mode button. The menu and delete keys are right at the bottom.

The power button can be found on the top of the camera alongside the shutter release button. What I like best about the camera is that it’s fast. It takes about one second to start and about the same time between shots – with adequate lighting of course.