I approached the review of Pentax's new little baby with some trepidation. Why, you may ask? Well, for the last 5 years I have been a Canon user through and through. I have had two of their Digital Ixus cameras (4 and 6MP - megapixel) and three of their Amateur status Digital SLRs (300D, 350D and 400D). I have also played with the Canon 10MP Ixus, and was not all that impressed, hence the reason I stuck with our 6MP Ixus.

With that in mind, I came to the Optio not expecting too much. So far, all of the 10MP compacts that I have seen or seen shots from have not been all that impressive.

 I was shocked by how well the A20 takes photos, with no advanced configuration.

The A20 is the replacement for Pentax's much liked A10, but adds some nice touches. The most obvious is the 10 Effective Mega Pixel CCD Sensor with a max capture resolution of 3648 x 2736. Other features are Shake Reduction (3 modes), Facial Recognition, a soft flash mode and most importantly the new ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) processor.

Specifications

• 10.0 mega pixels
• 2.5inch TFT LCD screen
• 3x optical zoom equivalent to 38mm-114mm in 35mm format
• 22 MB Built-in memory
• SD & SDHC memory card compatible
• 15cm macro
• Sensitivity range - ISO64 - ISO800
• Shutter speed range - 1/2000 sec. to 4 sec.

In Use

After charging the battery and popping my memory card into the camera (note: the A20 does not come with an SD card at all, so make sure you have a spare) I decided to perform a test in typical English overcast weather, as it should show up any issues with changeable light conditions.

I took the camera into the countryside, and took some shots that would allow me to judge the quality of the A20's sensor and processor.

As you can see with all the shots here, the quality of the photos is top notch - even if my skill is not. You can click any of the thumbnails for a higher resolution version.

The camera worked well and felt good on my initial outing. The build quality is certainly up there with anything that Canon and Fuji have put together; it does not weigh much and is very slim with a great screen that is easy to see under all light conditions. I was also impressed with the speed of the auto focus when in its full auto mode; some of the other 10MP cameras struggle to do this quickly, especially when the light is low.