Pentax’s waterproof Optio W80 reviewed: tough as nails, ‘so-so’ image quality

We’ve always heard that life was full of compromises, and evidently Pentax made a few when it decided to build its toughest, most rugged point-and-shoot camera of all time. On paper, the Optio W80 looked mighty promising, but in practice, the all-important image quality was found to fall short. Over at PhotographyBLOG, critics found that the camera could withstand “virtually anything” within reason, and while the 5x optical zoom and HD movie mode were both appreciated, most everything else was at least somewhat disappointing. The anti-shake system was found to simply slow the camera down, and the image quality was hamstrung by excessive noise at all ISO levels — even 100. Feel free to peek the full review down in the read link, but make sure to keep your expectations in check.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Pentax’s waterproof Optio W80 reviewed: tough as nails, ‘so-so’ image quality originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This post is tagged: camera, digicam, digital camera, DigitalCamera, optio, optio w80, OptioW80, Pentax, point and shoot, PointAndShoot, reviewed, rough, rugged, tough, w80, waterproof