Hard call to make - the new K-r seems to have addressed most of the "issues" people had with the K-x - but at a slightly larger/heavier body, and currently quite a hefty premium increase in price over the K-x street pricing.
Obviously the K-r is still new and one would expect the street price to come down eventually (there may be relatively good price drop for Black Friday/Thanksgiving) -
However it is almost "ironic" -
like Pentax are calling our "bluff" and complaints about the K-x
- and almost like saying here it is with your issues addressed
but are you willing to put your money where your..... and pay the price?
So for the K-x detractors - here's a chance to vote with your $$$'s!
However to be less cynical and more positive -
the introduction of the K-r - has made the K-x a real bargain -
I've seen the K-x with the 18-55 kit zoom for as low as $489 shipped from reputable vendors -
this is almost the price of some of the more premium compacts -
to get one of leading IQ in an APS-C sensor dSLRs regardless of price.
Just for interest I did a comparison of the K-x (originally meaning it to be a kind of "preview" of the K-r - since all the evidence so far seems to indicate that the IQ of the K-r and K-x are going to be very similar) with the current leading edge Pentax K-5, Nikon D7000 and Canon 60D - using the comparison page of the Canon 60D of dpReview.
I posted the below in another thread - but thought it was relevant here.
I wanted to see how the current leading edge dSLRs - Pentax K-5, Nikon D7000 and Canon 60D compared using the dpReview of the Canon 60D comparison -
the main shortcoming is the lack of skin tone - other than the picture of a face in the right of the target.
I included the Pentax K-x for 2 main reasons -
1) acknowledged currently as one of the best High ISO performers.
2) new K-r seems to be similar in performance - so this may give an indication of how the K-r may compare.
I do realize the K-x cannot be a 1:1 comparison since the K-x (K-r) are 12Mp vs the 16+Mp of the other leading edge dSLRs - but it was interesting/educational comparing them.
Looking at the High ISO -
ISO 6400 -
For grins I also compared at
ISO 12800 -
These new 16+Mp dSLRs are amazing with relative image quality that are visually matching the "best" 12Mp at High ISOs - the Nikon D7000 JPG engine appears to do well especially when comparing the Martini label - with the K-x a kind of second - and it seems that the K-5 noise reduction is a bit heavier and blurs away details (esp in the ISO 12800 comparisons) -
but at ISO 12800 one really ought to be working in RAW and reduce the noise using a more specialized NR program.