Everything said on this forum about the fragility of this camera and the terrible customer service is true. The camera worked great for a few months, then mysteriously stopped working. When I took it to an authorized repair facility they voided the warranty because of "impact damage" and claimed that the entire zoom mechanism would have to be replaced to the tune of $200. What a bunch of b.s.! The "impact damage" was a tiny scuff mark that did not result from a drop (since it was never dropped). We babied this camera and took extreme care to be careful with it and it just decided to quit on us. I suspect that taking this camera out of its case subjects it to "impact" -- it just feels delicate and is an accident waiting to happen. Don't waste your money.

I bought this camera to take on vacation to New Zealand. Its very easy to use. Having never used many cameras before, I was able to figure out my way around this camera, its modes, and even began messing with exposure times. The image quality is exceptional, especially for a camera that is so small and light that I sometimes forgot I had it strapped to my belt.

The battery life was quite good. I was able to take a couple hundred pictures with flash and display on before having to recharge.

A couple of things to note, though. The battery life indicator isn't very accurate. When the battery started draining fairly low, I'd power on the camera and sometimes it would show that it was fully charged, sometimes it would show that it was about to lose power alltogether.

Also, don't plan on taking either action or night shots with this camera. The shutter delay (time between pushing the button and it taking the picture) was long enough that I missed taking a few shots that I really wanted. (ie, a whale's tail as it was diving). For night shots, there is a lot of noise on the images, and objects tend to blur a little. (lacking detail on faces/etc)

That aside, I'd still recommend it for point-and-shoot users that want a record of their vacation. For the price and size, I couldn't be happier.

My wife and I bought this camera because of the great reviews. Amazon did not have any available at the time, so we bought locally.

The camera was the perfect small size and light weight. We found the hugh manual tiring to read and too many options to operate what is supposed to be a simple pocket camera. But this was all ok, so long as it performed good.

We shot many pictures and started printing some. At first glance we thought, very good. But we then started noticing that every picture, indoors or out (but primarily indoors) was slightly out of focus. So, we took identical shots with this camera and our old fujifilm finepix 2 megapixel camera and printed both. At this point we were very dissatisfied. There was no comparison. The fuji 2 MP pictures were beautiful and clear. The Pentax 4 MP pictures were all relatively fuzzy and out of focus. We tried again, using a tripod on the pentax camera. Same results. We then returned the camera for a refund.

I called customer service, and they had no idea what I was talking about. Said, they never had a complaint like this before. So, we took the $80 SD card purchased for this camera (which we could not return) and when back to the store, put in our sD card in their display model. Took a lot of pictures in the store with it and also the Fuji camera. When home and printed. Found the same results.

We learned a new lesson, that the number of megapixels is not the most important feature of a camera. We believe that because of the miniature size of this camera, possibly the tiny CCD which captures the image is simply not of the best quality. So, I magnified those images 100 times and found that colors were not correctly being duplicated. For example, looking at a black picture frame in the pictures, on the pentax, only about 10% of the dots were black, the rest were mostly light purple or yellow. On the Fuji camera, about 90% of the dots were black.

Hope this is helpful to those concerned with crisp, clear pictures with vivid color. I don't believe the Pentax Optio S4i can deliver on that. Obviously, many people don't look that close at pictures and are only interested in glancing at snapshots. Or, possibly both cameras in this particular store were of lesser quality.

This may seem like a copy of a previous review, but the same thing happened to me: lens mechanism failed due to sand/grit. I had this camera all of 3 months. The first time I took it to the beach some sand got inside the lens mechanism. That ended up causing damage and now Pentax wants me to pay $165 to repair the thing. I think this is total b.s. and I'm fighting with them now over this. Sure, this camera takes great pictures, but that's no good to you if it breaks while on vacation. I did NOT abuse this camera or drop it in the sand. The sand probably came from a couple grains in my pocket (I was fully clothed wearing jeans, so it's not like I was in shorts lying down in the sand). I don't know if the seals have a bad design but why release a camera with such a poor design. I would never buy another one of these again. I don't even think I'll spend the $165 to repair it as I have no doubt it will only fail again. I can only hope this review will disuade some people making the same mistake I did. While it worked, it was a fantastic camera and I understand why people rave over it, but I suggest you look somewhere else, or maybe get a pocket camera without a fragile zoom lens. Thanks Pentax!

I got a Pentax Optios S4i camera last Christmas from Amazon and it worked really well until this summer. First day on the beach, I started taking pictures of my daughter, when suddenly the camera stopped responding. There was some wind and despite my precautions some sand must have gone inside the zoom mechanism. By zooming in and out and then trying to turn off the camera a sand grain cracked the zoom and then entered in the lenses, blocking them. The result was the camera didn't work anymore. All my picture went blank, overexposed.
I called Pentax and was told that a digital camera is like a computer and shouldn't be taken to the beach. That sound really wrong to me, and in any event, the lenses part broke, not the "computer" part.
You can imagine, though, that few people would buy this digital camera if they knew they could not take photos at the seashore. I never read anywhere that sand damages are not covered by the warranty. I went to the Pentax Optios web page and first thing I saw was a picture of a kid with his dad playing on the beach. I found this totally misleading since people at Pentax told me if I wanted to bring the camera to the beach I should have bought a different camera possibly sand proof.
Despite my complains to get my camera fixed I had to pay 110$. Actually 105$, I got 5$ discount because of the phone call.
I'm stuck with this camera. I had a digital Sony before and never had problems with sand or dirt. This one is just too fragile. I will no recommend anybody to buy it, unless they plan only to take pictures of interiors.

This camera was not inexpensive and takes mediocre photos. The flash doesn't reach most of my subjects and I get a lot of black photos back. Half the photos are blurry and I cannot get it to focus. You have to wait what seems like eternity between shots as it won't let you take a photo within 5-10 sec of each other. So sad :-( Taking a loss on this one and looking for something more consistent and reliable.
Don't waste your money here.

I had 3 problems with my S4i, always at the worst times. I do have to say that Pentax Customer Service has been okay to me. I bought the camera in April 2004. Around Sept 2004, it just stopped working. I was at a charity event, took it out of the case to snap a few photos, but it wouldn't operate. When I pressed the power button, I got 2-3 beeps, a sound like the lens was trying to open, then the camera just powered off. Then it started working again, at least for a while. A month later I took it on a short weekend holiday. Of course it stopped working there. Sent back to Pentax for repair. Got it back about 2 months later, repaired. 6 months later was going on another short holiday. Took the camera out of the closet to confirm it still worked, and again was disappointed. When powered up, the lens opened, autofocus failed, lens closed, and camera powered off. Had to buy another digital camera (this time a Canon) for that trip. Sent the camera back to Pentax, as my cust. svc. rep told me it would be repaired under the 1 year warranty dating from time of first repair. I just received it back a week ago. Hope it continues to work.

I've had my camera for a little over a year! It might possibly be the best present my husband could have ever gotten me. I am NOT a porfessional photographer, and know very little about photography. But i LOVE pictures, and capturing moments to remember forever. This camera makes my pictures look like professional photos. It's amazing. There are soo many settings to allow you to do some really neat things with your pictures. My cousin after spending hundreds of dollars on pictures for her baby, ended up using several pictures i had taken of her son, to fram and hang in their home. they actually look better than the ones she paid a ton for.

I know that some people have expressed the camera was fragile, but i have to DISAGREE! I am about as clutsy as they come. It's a running joke with my family how i break things, trip, drop things, etc. I have droped, banged, and abused this camera and it seems to be in perfect working order. So i DEFINATELY think it's pretty STURDY!

I can't say enough things about me camera, but it's small enough that I keep with with me almost every day. (when my husband doesn't steal it that is) I have enjoyed it emensely!!!

This is a very small camera with no protrusions so that it is easily carried in a pocket or purse. Two of my friends have this model and have taken hundreds of excellent photos. However, my experience with it not been good. When the camera arrived, the on/off button did not function correctly. I managed to take a few good pictures with it on a vacation trip before it became unusable. When I returned it to the Pentax Distribution & Service Center, the Center claimed that the camera had internal damage "due to the penetration of liquid or oily substance" and could not be repaired under warranty. The camera was never exposed to a liquid or oily substance while in my possession. I cannot recommend this camera or any other Pentax product because of this failure to repair or replace this camera that was defective or damaged before I received it.