Originally posted by monochrome @kadajawi
Pentax has access to anything and everything that Ricoh is willing to pay for. The question will be whether we the Pentax User Base is willing to pay Ricoh to put those components in their Pentax cameras.
That's why my opinion is the FF will be highly spec'ed, use current or near-current components rather than older versions - but will be priced nearer $3,000 than $2,000.
Sort of... the problem I see is that
a) Samsung may decide that instead of giving their crown jewels to other companies for a small fee, it makes more sense to use them to gain marketshare, with the goal of eventually dominating the market, as they have done with TVs, monitors, phones/smartphones, ... Ricoh might not be able to get that tech no matter how much they pay (though fortunately Ricoh may be seen as a not big enough competitor to be deemed threatening).
b) Samsung's processor is quite different from what Pentax is using currently, it is running a smartphone OS (Tizen) instead of whatever OS Pentax is using (because their hardware is so limited). Is Pentax willing to write so much new code? Would Samsung hand over software too?
Similarly with Sony, though they have been more secretive AFAIK in what their OS and processor are.
I do expect the latest Milbeaut, a current-ish sensor, ... but the Milbeaut may still not be particularly fast, at least in comparison with the monster Samsung has created.
A maybe possible alternative could be using a Mediatek or preferably Qualcomm CPU, that has plenty of horse power (Samsung's processor has similar origins), and then either combine it with a Milbeaut for image processing or use the image processor the Qualcomm/Mediatek has (they have become rather powerful, though Samsung beefed theirs up considerably). Video encoding tasks could be done by the processor, stills, acquisition, JPEG rendering etc. by the Milbeaut. Maybe that is possible. But it costs more, consumes more space, perhaps more power, ... and new software will be needed too (IMHO Android might form a decent basis).
I agree with you that such a competitive camera won't come cheap, but that's what is needed. Lower end cameras derived from this can follow later.