entax has announced the three new compact cameras that were hinted at yesterday, in all their retro-tastic glory. As expected, the I-10 looks like a tiny 1960s SLR and the H90 caomes in a rather fetching orange’n’silver color scheme. Finally, Pentax snuck in the excruciatingly dull E90, a $100, 10MP camera which only a very bored mother could love. The $300 I-10 comes in black or white and with “classy” leatherette cladding. The lens has a 5x zoom, the sensor 12.1 MP, a 2.7-inch LCD and 720p video capture. The most exciting feature, though, apart from the horrible styling and lack of a viewfinder is the face detection mode. Pentax has tweaked the design to recognize dogs and cats.
By contrast, the H90 has hard, modern lines. Again with the 5x zoom, 12.1MP sensor, 2.7-inch and 720p video: it seems almost as if these cameras were only differentiated by case design. And price: the H90 is $180. The cheap-o E90 shoots at ISO6400 (with likely quite noisy results) and takes a pair of AA batteries. It could make a great, semi-disposable travel-cam.
www.pentaximaging.com
