Originally posted by klchew Digital Photography Review
Why couldn't Pentax make the K-01 more like the Canon EOS 100D? You don't need to pay a "Designer" tons of money to design a "brick" which doesn't sell in the numbers needed to continue it. Just imagine, a Pentax K-01 which is easier to hold and with a good viewfinder. Stuff it with the Pentax innards and it would be a great small SLR with access to all the K mount lenses!
Why on earth would they do that? The new Canon mini-DSLR is nothing new, Olympus E-4x0 and even Pentax K-r come to mind. But K-01 is a mirrorless camera with a standard K mount bayonet, and as such the closest comparison would be Samsung NX-10/20. A camera that looks like a typical Canikon DSLR, albeit a wee bit smaller, and acts like a typical mirrorless CSC, albeit with a built-in viewfinder. The Samsung NX-x0 line is not selling much, if any, better than the K-01, even after the price drop. The Samsungs are on sale with massive price drops all over Europe, and still they don't move. Stuffing the K-01 guts inside a boring DSLR replica is not the magic bullet that would make it sell like hotcakes. Even the Pentax logo is not powerful enough to pull that off.
Besides, Pentax already have K-r, so again, why on earth would they do that? I really hope they won't.
The main four problems with the K-01 were as follows:
-no viewfinder
-dodgy, unfinished CAF at launch time
-somewhat awkward button layout
-because of the above, too high a price tag at launch time
Those were the four basic nails in its coffin. The weird looks would be only the fifth nail, not the first.
The sixth would be the contradiction in terms, so to speak, having a standard K mount and thus flange distance identical to a DSLR sort of defeats the purpose of the mirrorless design in the first place, and making it almost as big as the smallest DSLR's.
However, quite a few people would have been ok with that, and even with the eccentric looks, if only the camera had had a decent EVF, or even an option for a separate one, and a fast enough AF, when compared to the other mirrorless cameras. Again, the overall spec sheet was a bit too minimal for that price tag.
If Pentax were to come up with a new version with the same specs in a plastic fake DSLR cover á la Samsung and Panasonic, that would not make it sell any better, if at all. Even Samsung GH2/GH3 is a niche camera, and it's selling moderately not because of the fake DSLR looks, but because it has two killer features, which the K-01 didn't have, namely decent video capabilities, and a decent built-in EVF.
So in case Pentax was ever to come up with a K-02, I really hope they won't make a typical "me too" fake mini-DSLR plastic toy, but rather something more unique. If Pentax were able to come up with the MX-1 design in-house, without the help of an expensive designer outside the company, they already have most of what it takes to make a much better second attempt on the subject. Provided that they remember to add an EVF to it. There would be not much point in coming up with yet another small DSLR, unless it was a normal K-r update.
Last edited by EchoOscar; 03-21-2013 at 01:54 PM.