Pentax Optio M10 review

The Optio M10 is available on the high street for £200, but many online stores are selling it for around £150, making it one of the most affordable 6-megapixel cameras we've seen.

There are a few clues to suggest that this is a budget camera: it's made of plastic and uses AA batteries rather than a lithium-ion cell, but it's compact and robust, and replacement AA batteries are easy to come by when you're on holiday. Battery life is passable from a pair of Duracell Plus batteries. Don't forget to budget for a large SD card, though, as the 22MB of onboard memory will soon get filled.

The video mode is disappointing, capturing at a 320x240-pixel resolution and its auto-exposure reacts lethargically to changes in lighting conditions. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find a 21/2" screen at this price. Its 115,000-pixel resolution is only half that of the other cameras in this month's What's New, but the large size makes framing and reviewing shots a satisfying experience.

Pentax cameras are always easy to use and the M10 is no exception, although it has been dumbed down a little too much for our liking. Instead of a Function button for quick access to ISO, white balance and other settings, it has a green Mode button that gives quick access to cheesy picture frames such as a lacy heart, leaving no room for more useful settings. There are various scene modes, including a useful Night Scene mode for taking pictures in very low light without the flash, and utterly odd ones such as six Pet modes for photographing dogs or cats with white, grey or black fur.

Fortunately, the standard mode includes the usual options we'd expect from a point-and-shoot camera. You have no direct control over exposure, manual focus or metering options, but flash, macro, self-timer, exposure compensation, white balance, ISO speed and focus area are all in place, as well as less common options such as sharpness, saturation and contrast.

The camera is a little slow to start, taking four seconds to power up and take a shot. Otherwise, its performance is decent, taking just two seconds between shots at the maximum image quality. Continuous mode captured five shots in five seconds, then continued at a shot every two seconds. However, previews aren't available in continuous mode and there's no optical viewfinder, so the standard drive mode might prove better for rapid-fire shooting. Like all Pentax cameras, the M10 enables extremely fast browsing through pictures.

A high megapixel count doesn't necessarily translate to high image quality, particularly in low-cost cameras. Fortunately, the M10's low price isn't reflected in its image quality; this camera outperforms the two pricier 6-megapixel cameras reviewed on page 32. Its flash is superb, illuminating large rooms and giving pleasing exposures when taking portraits at close proximity. The fully automatic mode uses the highest ISO setting (ISO 400) in low light to minimise blur from camera shake. This often leads to excessive image noise, but here it was barely evident. Most impressive was the sharpness and detail captured in photos, a step up from that of the Nikon and Acer cameras reviewed this month. The only significant fault was that colours could be a little muted, but this was easily remedied with the camera's saturation control. You may prefer to remedy this problem in your image-editing software, as you'll have more control and get better results.

The Optio M10 is pretty much everything a point-and-shoot digital camera should be: affordable, compact, quick and easy to use, and capable of producing excellent photos with minimal need to grapple with camera settings. It doesn't look particularly exciting, but the large screen adds an element of panache. Even after you've budgeted for rechargeable batteries and a large SD card, this is extremely good value and produces excellent photos.