[Eruditass]

His profile used to say Pentax Employee, so perhaps he did some tech support. Perhaps many new DSLR(from P&S) owners complained.

[cb750r]

Thanks Marc for saying what a lot of us were thinking, I'd be more than happy to hear what background your basing the thought of the KX not performing. With most of the dudes post count on my thread alone there's hardly a track record of usefull information from this user to make conclusions on without knowing a bit more about his experience directly relating to pentax's and the hundreds of unhappy customers.

The more I read though the more I hear that the high iso issues of the k7 are mostly jpeg related. The K7 is a wonderful camera, if I was the kinda guy who didn't buy old motorcycles and fix em up cuz I can't afford new ones, I wouldn't hesitate and go spend a grand on a new body...

But I'm a frugal kinda guy who has really been bitten by the photo bug lately and is starting to feel a little limited by the Km, and is starting to plan my next acquisition.

For now I may join the throng of folks waiting to see if they drop a kx sensor into a k7 body/feature set, and troll the buy and sell looking for a steal on a k20d.

[simico]

I've only had my KM for half a year, and I'm starting to outgrow it, I really like the small pakage size and taking it mtn biking and hiking and skiing. I'm not impressed with the noise levels at 800, and would like a faster frames per second.

Do I get enough of an upgrade going to a KX?

is a K20d used the best bang for the buck?

or go for it and get a K7?

forsake the Pentax clan and save my pennies for a 7D?

In my opinion it all depends on what things/features limit you exactly? When you say "starting to outgrow it", what are the 3-4 key things that limit you and want to be better in the next camera?
My advice: think about what really limits you, what are the things you really miss and write those down in a list. Then check for each item on your list which camera can deliver that feature and how much it costs. At the end you'll have something like this:
- faster AF -> K-7 slightly faster -> ~ $1000 -> worth spending $1000 to get slightly faster AF yes/no?
- higher FPS rate -> K-x / K-7 -> ~ $500 / $1000 -> worth spending $500 / $1000 for higher FPS rate yes/no?
- ......

At the end you'll see which cam can give you most of what you need, how much of an improvement it could give and does that improvement worth the price of the new cam.
Only you can decide what are the thing you miss, how much you miss them (or really miss them at all) and how much you willing to pay for slight/moderate/big improvements.
Btw K20D has slower AF, lesser FPS rate (although bigger buffer), consider these before you "upgrade" to that.