Since we how have active threads about the doom of Pentax and the K-01,
lets as someone recently said, beat the dead horse from a greasy spot to
a smoking crater.
What I see as being wrong with the K-01 were three things.
1. Marketing. With the K-01 Pentax once again proved that it has no
ability to market, they can't identify a target and can't hit it either
a demographic or a competitor. Let's look at a mirrorless competitor.
Let's take something released in the same year with the same MP sensor,
why look there's the Panasonic Lumix GH3! If you read the
specifications it's well not a bad match. Sure the Lumix has a bigger
buffer, and has a EVF, but hell, it's huge man. By comparison the K-01
is almost svelte. The selling point of M43 cameras are their small size
but, (and maybe I just haven't paid attention), no one complains about
how big the GH3 is. However the K-01 it needs two things to really work
compare to the G3 which is an EVF and a greater burst depth.
2.) Lack of an EVF. True it's buffer is a bit lacking and Pentax
cheeped out there, but in most other ways the K-01 specification isn't
bad at all. Now look at the Sony NEX-7 is there any reason that Pentax
couldn't have tucked a high resolution EVF into the top left corner of
the back of the K-01? Except for the wish to use exactly the same
stainless frame and external display as the K30 that is. Of course
not. Pentax cheeped out again. Sony was able to put the EVF in the
Nex7 by changing the aspect ratio of the screen to exactly match the
sensor. Pentax could have done that, but they chose to cripple the K01
from the start. Sure it might have cost a bit more in design and
tooling, but if they'd sold a bunch more units it would have been worth it.
3.) Industrial design. I don't know how much Pentax paid, but it was
too much. It's not that it's ugly, but it's self conscious. The K01
demands that you love it because it looks different. Maybe if Pentax
had spent a bit on packaging to get a decent EFV to fit into the same
form factor and gone with a more classic camera look, rather than a
"Lomo" look, (which their in house designers were more than competent to
execute). They could have always tarted it up a bit with high gloss
cherry metal flake paint on some of the exposed plastic panels and
different colored plastics, it's not like they haven't done that before.
The money saved on industrial design could have been used to offset
the costs of making it a useful camera and marketing it as such instead
as a collectors item.
--
Don't lose heart, they might want to cut it out, and they'll want to avoid a
lengthly search.
--
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