Originally posted by Alizarine Here comes the complaints on the "looks" again. Well, it's all subjective I guess. Some will love it and some will hate it. I used to hate the K-01's design, but it grew on me in time. Now I dig the non-conformist look of it.
And being the entry-level camera from Pentax, if it has an external mic input, well well, that's a very good sign! More high-end features trickling down ...wait.
Would this mean the K-5 replacement is going to be ... more expensive? If it's close to $1600/$1700 at launch then more people will have reason to "just add a few hundred dollars more and get the D800..."
Why do people continue to call this an "entry level" camera? This is definitely a mid-level camera. Price isn't 1000 dollars either, but 750 from what I can tell. Still, it is probably the cheapest camera out there that will offer the features it has, weather sealing, dual control wheels and probably no crippling like Nikon does with their lower end cameras. Oh, and Pentax does over several reasonably priced weather sealed lenses as well.
As to the K5 sequel. Yes, it will be 1500 to 1600 dollars on release. That is what the K5 was on release and the price gradually went down from there to just below a thousand. This has been Pentax's strategy -- price products high initially with plenty of room for discounting later. Same has been true of other products. Unfortunately, people compare products at the end of their cycles (read kx for 450 dollars) with the price of products just being launched.
As to the D800 comparison, the difference will be over a thousand dollars not the "few hundred" that you said. Still, I hope Pentax does release a full frame 2500 to 3000 dollar camera worth of the k mount.