[Confused]

Hi everyone

I was recently browsing through the magazine displays in my local branch of W.H. Smith's (U.K.) and noticed the following headline on the latest cover of Digital Camera Buyer magazine (Issue 65).
This test is entitled "Digital SLR's under £400" and involves the Olympus E510, Nikon D40X, Canon 400D, Pentax K10D, Samsung GX10 and Sony A100.
I have yet to find the K10D available online for under £400.00 and am beginning to wonder if this is either a misprint, or if the editorial team have got their facts and figures wrong ?

Best regards
Richard

[daacon]

Seems resonable - one of the local shops here has the K10D body only for $650.00 Cdn (about 315 GBP)

[Confused]

Hi Dave

As stated previously on many occasions, retail and online prices in the U.K. are always way more expensive than those available in the U.S. The going rate for a K10D & 18-55mm kit lens over here in England is about £474.00 ($950 U.S. !!!), which is why I was quite surprised by the magazine's price claim of under £400.00 ($800 U.S.)

Best regards
Richard

[Canada_Rockies]

Hi Dave

As stated previously on many occasions, retail and online prices in the U.K. are always way more expensive than those in the U.S. The going rate for a K10D & 18-55mm kit lens over here in England is about £474.00 ($950 U.S. !!!), which is why I was quite surprised by the magazine's price claim of under £400.00 ($800 U.S.)

Best regards
Richard

Are you comparing prices with VAT while the magazine is before VAT? I have seen in the UK that prices often are quoted including the VAT.

[Confused]

Hi Canada_Rockies

Retail prices published in the U.K. are required by law to INCLUDE VAT (Value Added Tax) @ 17.5%, so all of the prices mentioned previously in this thread are INCLUSIVE of VAT !

Best regards
Richard

[Arpe]

Who won the test?

[Confused]

Hi Arpe

Unfortunately I only had time to briefly glance at the contents, but I believe the C****n 400D was declared the winner.

Best regards
Richard

[Miserere]

Clearly the test was rigged. I've handled a friend's XTi and there is no way it beats the K10D at anything.

Maybe the £400 was for the body only?

[tux08902]

The Canon Rebel XTi's feature set doesn't even come anywhere close to the Pentax K10D's. That test is flawed. The K10D competes well with many of the higher-end cameras from more prominent manufacturers such as Canon and Nikon.

[Confused]

Hi Miserere

Re your query:

Maybe the £400 was for the body only?

Nope....All the camera bodies in this test came complete with their standard kit lens......go figure !

Best regards
Richard

[Lloydy]

Another of the UK magazines has the same bunch of cameras on test as well - "Digital Photo"

"And the winner is ...................................



the Canon 400D!"


There's four categories each given up to five stars.
Features and build, Performance, Image quality and Value for money.
The K10 scores 5 stars for "Features and build" and "Performance", and 4 stars for the rest.

The Canon scores 4 stars for "Features and build" and 5 stars for the rest.

OK, the Canon scores 5 stars in 3 out of 4 categories while the K10 and the Samsung GX10 score 5 stars in 2 out of 4.

I know that "Image quality" is a very important category for a camera test, but the "slight overexposure" they marked the K10 down for is something that is easily corrected and compensated for in the cameras settings, but "Features and build" is something intrinsic to the camera, which I feel is far more important when comparison tests are being done.

They also list the K10 at £479, and a Google shows the cheapest available are around the £450 mark so I think that other magazine have mislead people.

[Confused]

Hi Lloydy

Re your observation:

I think that other magazine.....(Digital Camera Buyer (Issue 65)).......have mislead people

Precisely my point, UNLESS they know something WE DON'T ?????

Best regards
Richard

[axl]

Cheapest I found was £469.99 w DA 18-55

Maybe stupid question: where on a keybord you have £ sign. I had to copy it from another poster

[Confused]

Hi axl

On my laptop, the £ sign is on the same keycap above the figure '3', which should be entered by holding down the shift-key at the same time as typing in said number.

The main Character Sets are:

ASCII (32 control codes, 95 characters). All of these characters correspond to keyboard keys. 33 is the space, 48-57 are numbers, 65-90 are upper-case letters, 97-122 are lower-case letters, and the rest are punctuation and symbols.

Windows ANSI (224 characters; since Win3.1). The additional 126 characters above the ASCII set are called “Upper ANSI”.


Best regards
Richard

[ZaphodB]

I don't know why they think the K10d with kit lens is available for under £400; normally the price seems to be around £475 (or £440-450 without the kit lens). Of course, I'm sure someone is selling it for under £400, but when I'm already paying £400 an extra £75 doesn't make too much difference (e.g. I'd rather buy at £475 from a shop I trust than £400 from some eBay seller).

Still, the fact that they counted the K10d as being under £400 just makes the results of that test even dumber. But to be honest we've come to expect this by now... tests or reviews, by Canikon users, for an overwhelmingly Canikon readership, are going to favour those companies. They're just playing it safe.

Course, there's also the glass-half-full interpretation: at least Pentax is getting some more publicity this way, and it got good marks, even if a certain other camera was overrated.