Pentax's newest cameras
Pentax announced two new 7-megapixel digital cameras for the spring, the Optio T30 and M30. The high-end T30 sports a 3-inch touch screen as its biggest feature, while the more conventional M30's appeal is in its solid feature set and much smaller price tag.
The Optio T30's touch-screen LCD functions much like the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-T50's, with most settings and features accessible through the touch screen's menus instead of buttons. It also includes a basic paint mode, for editing and drawing on images in the camera itself. Besides the touch screen, the T30 includes face-recognition autofocus and autoexposure features and has an all-aluminum body.
The Optio M30 doesn't have quite as many impressive features, but with a price tag a little more than half of the T30's, it doesn't really need them. The M30 is slimmer and lighter than the T30, and is otherwise a standard, compact 7-megapixel point-and-shoot camera. It has the same face-recognition autofocus and autoexposure features as the T30, and other standard-but-handy functions such as a 30fps VGA movie mode and on-camera image editing.
The Pentax Optio M30 will have a suggested retail price of $200, and the Optio T30 will have a suggested price of $350. Both cameras ship in March 2007.
