Pentax Optio S5i

Although targeting snapshooters looking for an ultracompact and stylish camera, the Pentax Optio S5i still offers enough features to please those who want to tweak their photos as their skills grow. Unfortunately, it can also be sluggish. Read all about it.

Announced in August 2004, the Pentax Optio S5i is an upgrade of the popular S4i with an extra million pixels, some minor styling changes and a couple of new features. The S5i is almost unfeasibly small — thanks in part to the innovative sliding lens first seen at the start of 2003 in the Optio S (and since in several Pentax and Casio models) — yet is more feature-packed than most other ultra-compacts. In an ever-growing market, and with a handful of outstanding competing models (see recent reviews of the Canon PowerShot SD300 and Panasonic DMC-FX7 for example), does the Optio S5i have what it takes to become the pocket camera of choice? Let's find out. Here's a few of the S5i's headline features to get us started:

Review posted 10/25/2004 Click on the Optio S5i to take a QuickTime VR tour Following in the footsteps of the popular Optio

IN-DEPTH review of thePentax Optio S5I digital camera, with actual sample images, and a detailed data sheet.

Announced in August 2004, the Pentax Optio S5i is an upgrade of the popular S4i with an extra million pixels, some minor styling changes and a couple of new features. The S5i is almost unfeasibly small — thanks in part to the innovative sliding lens first seen at the start of 2003 in the Optio S (and since in several Pentax and Casio models) — yet is more feature-packed than most other ultra-compacts. In an ever-growing market, and with a handful of outstanding competing models (see recent reviews of the Canon PowerShot SD300 and Panasonic DMC-FX7 for example), does the Optio S5i have what it takes to become the pocket camera of choice? Let's find out. Here's a few of the S5i's headline features to get us started:

The ever-excellent Digital Photography Review has an in-depth review of the new Pentax Optio S5i compact digital camera.  The 5 megapixel model is one of the smallest and lightest cameras in its class and has good, but not great image quality, according to DP Review. .