Computer Advice

Pentax’s Optio Z10 digital camera has been out for a little while now, but it just recently landed into the hand of the folks at Photography Blog, who’ve now given the cam their usual review treatment. From the looks of it, however, this one appears to be a decidedly mixed bag, with the camera winning some points for its 7x optical zoom (despite its pocketable size), but leaving them rather unimpressed overall. Most significantly, they say the image quality is “severely hampered by noise,” a problem that apparently crops up even at ISO 200, and becomes a “pixellated mess” by ISO 3200. The so-called “digital shake reduction” also appears to be about as useful as a digital zoom, and the face recognition feature doesn’t seem to have fared much better either. On the upside, the camera’s focusing is reportedly “fast and accurate,” even in low-light conditions, and there is that 7x zoom. Unless that’s your top priority, however, it seems like you can probably do better elsewhere.