This camera may have 4 MP resolution but it has low definition and is one of the noisiest cameras I have ever seen. My old 2MP coolpix 950 looks much better. Exchanged it for the 3.2MP Canon Powershot A70 today.

Cool looks can be misleading...

The Optio takes true 4MP pictures, which are good for enlarged prints. The image quality is good, with decent colors and slightly soft edges. (I personally don't like sharp edges anyway.) The form factor makes it easy to hold, and the 3X optical zoom is fast and accurate. You can use either the LCD viewfinder or the optical viewfinder, the latter saving you considerable battery life. A solid product that I think you'll like. Do look around for the best price.

The Optio takes true 4MP pictures, which are good for enlarged prints. The image quality is good, with decent colors and slightly soft edges. (I personally don't like sharp edges anyway.) The form factor makes it easy to hold, and the 3X optical zoom is fast and accurate. You can use either the LCD viewfinder or the optical viewfinder, the latter saving you considerable battery life. A solid product that I think you'll like. Do look around for the best price.

The Optio takes true 4MP pictures, which are good for enlarged prints. The image quality is good, with decent colors and slightly soft edges. (I personally don't like sharp edges anyway.) The form factor makes it easy to hold, and the 3X optical zoom is fast and accurate. You can use either the LCD viewfinder or the optical viewfinder, the latter saving you considerable battery life. A solid product that I think you'll like. Do look around for the best price.

Frankly, I bought this camera thinking that I had found the perfect camera featuring 4MP, a 3x zoom, metal casing and all this in a very small format. The price was also really competitive, only the HP 812 was cheaper but it was made of plastic... (I think they share the same optics/CCD)

I found this camera extremely easy to use! The learning curve was almost inexistant. Althought there is only 6 exposure modes on the dial, I found that it was much easier to use than other cameras with 10-15 modes. You can set it with just a glimpse.

The 3D mode is especially cool, it permits to create a picture made of 2 frames shot 3-5 inches apart. This stereogram when printed in the proper size can be viewed with the special glasses (included) (or without, if you are able to "see" them...)

However, the honeymoon ended when i looked at the pictures upclose. Even when taken on a bright sunny day, pictures never achieved 4 megapixels of sharpness, more like 2 megapixels. Under lower lighting conditions (cloudy day), you could easily see noise. Also JPEG were a rather big (usually around 2600 KB) considering their lack of detail, but that was a lesser problem.

In the end, i had a really hard time deciding whether i should return it or not, but i finally did. There's no point in buying a 4 MP camera, if it produces 2 MP worth of quality at twice the price and more than twice the filesize (twice less pictures on a flash card), no matter how cute and easy to use it is... So i went ahead and bought a top of the line (but still compact) Canon Powershot S45. Althought it isn't has userfriendly, it give you 4 MP worth of picture.

I'm on my third one, and this one just died. I seriously don't mistreat them at all, I even keep it in a hardshell case when travelling. But invariably, every six months, it goes dead, I call Pentax, they take it in, send it back to me with "a board replaced" and I wait six months for it to die. If it wasn't for the chronic death syndrome - it's be a great 4 star camera - it's fairly quick, has a good flash, good depth of field and really great image quality. But i'm tired of returning for repair.