Pentax Optio M20 Review
The Pentax Optio M20 offers a wide range of basic features, has 7 megapixels, 3x optical and 4x digital zoom all within a compact body.7 megapixels gives exceptional definition and, when combined with the Blur Reduction mode which compensates for camera shake and blurring, high quality images are the result. ISO equivalents are auto and manual (64/100/200/400/1600) with White Balance modes available of auto, daylight, shade, fluorescent, tungsten and manual.
Still focus range is auto and manual, movie range is pan-focus. A selection of preselected shooting modes include; auto picture, night, movie, landscape, portrait, flower, surf and snow, sport, food and self-portrait. The Optio M20 also benefits from Face Recognition AE & AF where focus and exposure are automatically set once the subject has been located.
The Pentax Optio M20 has a built-in flash system with control auto flash, flash-on, flash-off, red-eye reduction and soft flash options.
Images can be viewed on the 2.5" TFT colour LCD with back light for easier viewing.
The Pentax Optio M20 is compatible with NTSC, PAL formats and PictBridge.
For the Pentax Optio M20Pentax Optio M20 Specifications & Features
- 7 Megapixels
- 3 x Optical Zoom
- 4 x Digital Zoom
- 12 x Combined Zoom
- 10cm Focusing Distance
- Auto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten light, Fluorescent light and Manual White Balance Settings
- 2.5" LCD Screen, approx. 115,000 pixels
- Flash On, Flash Off and Red-Eye Reduction Flash Modes
- Maximum Image Size 3072 x 2304 Pixels
- 640 x 480 Movies
- PictBridge Compatible
- Secure Digital (SD) and SDHC Card - 21.9MB Internal Memory
- 2 x AA Batteries
- Approximate Weight 130g
Pentax Optio M20 User Reviews
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Reviewer: Jo W - UK
Tell me about it Edd. I bought my camera for nearly £200 in March 07 and used it in the same month for holiday snaps. When I came to use the camera for the second time in July 07 the shutter button came off. Thinking like most decent business' that are confident in their products that Pentax would provide a years guarantee, I didnt send it off to be fixed until, has it turned out, out of the 6 month warranty period. Pentax have quoted me £82.00 to fix this button even though I suggested it must be a fault in the camera as surely their products are designed for use more than once? You'd think. Considering I can now buy a new one off the internet for as little as £85 how can they charge such a ridiculous price to fix a button??! Needless to say I am in the process of dealing with their complaints department and won't be buying Pentax again!! Not to be a complete moaner, on a positive note the camera is easy to use and takes good pictures. When it works!!!!!!!!
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Reviewer: edd - UK
only a year old( and approx 20 pics) and the shutter button dosn't work ..!... what a waste of money..currently waiting for reply from pentax...!..any one else had the same problem ..?..
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Reviewer: Ernie Tate - UK
A very good camera at a very tempting price.
I have had this camera for around 4 weeks now, and found this camera to be superb. Picture quality is sharp when subject is well lit, and you can really see the benefit of the 7 MP resolution. Very superior to my old 2MP camera I had and a step up from a 5MP Sony I had the use of recently.
There are plenty of modes to play around with and the auto mode will do most people. Sometimes I find that the auto mode selects a night-shot rather than using the flash but this can be overridden when it happens. Using the Program mode seemss to speed up the time to take shots faster, and was quicker than a 5MP Sony I had. 1/2 the time taken by the camera in auto mode is deciding what type of scene mode to use and using program bypasses this step.
Build quality appears to be robust, the camera feels solid in-hand, with mine also surviving an accidental 2ft drop on to the floor.
This is sold as a very cheap 7MP camera, and I was impressed with both the quality of the images and the battery life. I was initially worried that I'd be spending my life forever buying batteries for it, but am delighted to say that's not the case with a good 220+ images being taken without any problems on 2 AAs
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Reviewer: Andrea Wilson - UK
A very good camera at a very tempting price.
I'm very pleased with my purchase - it's small, compact and lightweight with a toughened 2.5" LCD screen. Best of all for me, it uses AA batteries so I'm not going to be let down with a failed lithium battery in the middle of nowhere. All but two of my other cameras use AA batteries but they last considerably longer in this little Pentax. General performance is good with a superb super-macro for close-up and hardly any shutter lag making it quite speedy in use. The focussing can wander a little making it marginally slower than a Sony but overall I am very pleased with it.
I was particularly impressed by the camera's low light capabilities as so many compacts fail in poor light conditions - but not this one. As I often have to take photos at awkward angles where it's not possible to view the LCD screen, I found the audio 'bleep' indicating the subject is in focus to be an unexpectedly useful feature. The VGA video is a good quality although it uses a lot of memory - very approximately 1mb per 1.3 seconds recorded so I'd advise buying a 1gb or 2gb SD card if you plan to use this feature heavily, as I do.
Excellent value for money - even at a much higher price!
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Reviewer: Jeff Willis - UK
I recently purchased this PENTAX M20 camera for my girlfriend who out grew the features and limitations of the Fujifilm Finepix Z1. ( The Z1 is an outstanding camera however, it has limitations when being used for creative work). We took several pics macro, super-macro, night shots, indoor, outdoor etc.
As a professional protographer I found the picture quality to be outstanding. (the camera was set up for the highest resolution and quality with a 1 gig memory card). The camera performed well in all situations. The only complaint I would have is the shutter lag could be faster.
I have not experienced the bluriness or poor picture quality some people have reported. For the price the camera has loads of features not normally found in cameras of this price range.
I would highly recommend this camera for novice or experienced users alike. As with any new digital camera you must make sure of the mode your shooting in as there are lots of modes, shooting in the wrong one will lead to poor shoots, and READ THE MANUAL
eBuyers recent price drop must be an incentive to part with a little money for such a solid little performer. 9/10 Jeff W.
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Reviewer: Karen Wren - UK
I just don't understand why the earlier reviews are so poor - or has there been a faulty batch?!
Certainly, I'm very happy with my purchase and I paid £130 for it just 3 months ago!
I found it to be a very good point and shoot camera at a very tempting price and even more so now that the price has dropped so much.
I'm very pleased with my purchase - it's small, compact and lightweight with a toughened 2.5" LCD screen. Best of all for me, it uses AA batteries so I'm not going to be let down with a failed lithium battery in the middle of nowhere. All but two of my other cameras use AA batteries but they last considerably longer in this little Pentax. General performance is good with a superb super-macro for close-up and hardly any shutter lag making it quite speedy in use. The focussing can wander a little making it marginally slower than a Sony but overall I am very pleased with it.
I was particularly impressed by the camera's low light capabilities as so many compacts fail in poor light conditions - but not this one. As I often have to take photos at awkward angles where it's not possible to view the LCD screen, I found the audio 'bleep' indicating the subject is in focus to be an unexpectedly useful feature. The VGA video is a good quality although it uses a lot of memory - very approximately 1mb per 1.3 seconds recorded so I'd advise buying a 1gb or 2gb SD card if you plan to use this feature heavily, as I do.
Excellent value for money - even at its earlier much higher price!
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Reviewer: David - UK
I really cannot understand where these other reviewers are going wrong, I bought 2 of these PENTAX M20 Cameras on ebuyer.com after the price had come down to £64.99. I now taken over 220 Photos with the M20 with a Kingston High speed memory card (SD), and much to my surprise the pictures have been very sharp, well exposed, and the Pictures taken in the low light have turned out very pleasing too.. Ive NOT used the motion video mode... however, I did'nt buy the camera for Videos... I would recommend this PENTAX M20 to anyone who has a steady hand, and has previous experience in using a digital cameras, as It takes a little knowledge on how to use it properly.
The Camera 3x Optical Lens is a PENTAX superior quality glass lens.
The Camera feels right in the hand, and a little bleep comes from the camera when the autofocus has successfully locked on its target.!
The Camera is NOT made from Plastic but metal and is solid and very robust, the screen is a nice big 2.5 high quality LCD which gains up in poor light so you can see the subject.!
Despite the other poor reviews, PENTAX has a very long reputation for making quality cameras, and before this model was released it would have been through hundreds of quality control tests in the factory, before mass production.
I rest my case, best value for money digital camera on the market £64.99 - £69.99 at www.ebuyer.com
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Reviewer: simon clemence - Australia
What a waste of money. I paid nearly $300 AUD for this piece of junk. What's the point of an easy to use, light weight camera that take shocking photos.
The pics are grainey and poor. Don't even think of wasting your money on this junk. I will now have to buy another camera for my daughter. And it won't be a pentax.
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Reviewer: Andrew - United States
I am also deeply distressed by the indoor and occasional outdoor photos. I have already decided I wasted my money. I'd have to say the photos are very grainy & or blurry
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Reviewer: Yavor - Bulgaria
BAD BAD BAD :(
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Reviewer: Malcolm Hill - UK
A damaged Sony Cyber shot resulted in a suprise Xmas box for Dad in the form of Pentax M20. The next suprise was such a poor picture quality given this camera is 7 mega pix, my Sony before damage at 2 mega pix gave a sparkling picture far aheaad in quality to my new M20. I have yet to try and address this feature with the supplier/manufacturer but something is clearly/blurry wrong. In other respects the camera is excellent and easy to use but its good pictures that is required as a primary objective.
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Reviewer: Joe Keene - United States
I just got this camera in November 2006 and after the first upload of pics to my computer, I was sadly, dissappointed with the end result.
My most recent digital camera was a Kodak EasyShare CX6330 3.2mp which I had been very impressed with since the first day we had it. However, it was finally dying a slow death (the lcd screen and the captured images would be black after one or two photos) after three years of good service. The Pentax was a birthday gift from my wife to replace the Kodak.
At any rate, I have been an (Canon F-1) SLR photographer for nearly 30 years, and taking the plunge to the Kodak digital was done with some fear & trepidation, which was quickly overcome by the glowing results. However, this new Pentax camera gave grainy photos from nearly the start. I've read the manual regarding the camera settings, and I did a side by side comparison with the failing Kodak camera (taking side by side photos of the same subject, lighting & distance), and there's just something wrong with the Pentax that anyone would be able to notice. It didn't matter if I had the camera set for th 7 megapixel or the 3 megapixel setting, both resulted in grainy image quality that seems unreasonable in the lighting circumstances it was used in. It even failed worse on backlighting situations that it should have been able to deal with...
I thought I'd hang onto the camera until after Christmas photos were taken to again do a comparison, and here I am the day after Christmas agonizing over the lost moments I'll never be able to recapture because the photos are so lackluster I'll probably delete most of them. (Praying someone at the party got some good ones... Family gift opening pics looked like they were done on a camera phone or with my camcorder picture utility)
If I were the makers of this camera, I'd really be ashamed of having let it go out onto the market place. There are probably some really nice cameras out there in the same price range that take really marvelous photos - this is not one of them... Don't waste your time, your precious moments, or your energy on this camera. Sorry Pentax. You failed.
BTW, it should be noted that my first camera was a 35mm SLR Pentax, and I know it wasn't the greatest (1970's era) camera, but it took great photos.
I'm now officially gonna wrap this thing back up and return it to QVC for a full refund (I hope!).
Hope my posting this saves someone else from having to go through the same thing and I hope Pentax searches the forums (USA & UK) for messages like this when they "try" to design next year's models. Fire the current crew and get someone in there that knows what they are doing!!
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Reviewer: Mark - UK
I purchased the Pentax Optio M20 because I wanted a compact, camera that I could pretty much take anywhere, and that would give me good clean photos. Pentax have a good reputation when it comes to cameras so I felt I couldn't go far wrong with this little camera. However, I only had it for 24hrs and was so disenchanted with it that I got a full refund and went with a completely different brand.
In the cameras favour was its ease of use. The flash had a good range for a compact camera. I took pictures across my living room (2.5-4 metres) of my children and they were illuminated quite well. It also uses 'AA' batteries which I feel is a big plus if you travel and there's a likelihood you could get caught out. (You can buy them almost anywhere) I was also able to find my way around the numerous functions very quickly.
However, and this is a big however, a camera is only as good as the pictures it takes and I found the picture quality of this camera sadly lacking bordering on awful. If I'd had to guess at the resolution from the pictures it produced, I would have put it at no more than 1 megapixels.
First of all, every picture I took with this camera was out of focus around the edges and I don't mean only on the edges but well into the picture. (Viewed on a 15 inch monitor at least 2-3 ins all round) This gave the pictures it produced a mild tunnel vision effect. Second, though the pictures were sort of in focus in the middle, they were not crisp by any stretch of the imagination, even in the highest resolution and quality settings. (Though the lens appeared clean, the pictures looked like they had been taken through a dirty lens)
Indoor shots, with and without flash, looked as if they had a soft filter over them and the camera also took what seemed to be an eternity to focus in normal lighting indoors.
Full daylight produced the best pictures, but even then, for a 7 megapixel camera they were still of poor quality. By comparison, my daughter's 2 megapixel Fuji finepix A205s takes far better pictures as does my son's 3 megapixel cameraphone.
In summary, I'd say that its all very well having 7 megapixels but you need to give them a good image to record and this camera didn't seem capable of doing that. In all fairness of course, it has to be said that I could have just had a bad one, so you will have to weigh this review in the balance with all the others.
I have since bought a Samsung i6 and am absolutely amazed at the difference. One megapixel less and far superior pictures
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Pentax Optio M20 Review & Features - © UK Digital Camera Reviews 2008
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