Unusual Pentax K-01 delivers on performance

— -- The Pentax K-01 is a camera with a design that invites interpretation. Is it unique or odd? Futuristic or toyish? Bold or butchered? Whatever the case, if you find yourself attracted to the K-01 based solely on its forward-thinking exterior design, then you'll be happy to know that underneath it all is a rather excellent camera.

Dreamed up by legendary industrial designer Marc Newson, Pentax's latest mirrorless camera bucks the trends of modern camera design; it's thick and heavy, and its boxy design looks quite unlike every other interchangeable lens camera out there. We can hardly blame Pentax for refusing to fire conventional weapons in the war of mirrorless cameras—especially as hordes of small interchangeable lens cameras with big sensors hit the market from Nikon, Sony, and Samsung.

The Pentax K-01 is therefore a gimmick, in the truest sense of the word. We are neither qualified to, nor interested in commenting on the aesthetic design at any sophisticated level, other than to say the body is bulky and difficult to handle. Beyond this, regarded purely as a device for taking pictures, the K-01 succeeds on almost every level.

In our full lab testing, we found the camera's greatest strength is capturing very fine details. Thanks to an excellent APS-C image sensor, plus the very high quality kit lens, the K-01 achieved the second-best sharpness scores we've ever recorded. Speaking of the kit lens, it's a marvel of engineering: a 40mm pancake, no wider in entirety than your thumb, and equipped with a smooth mechanical manual focus ring. Remarkably, you'll find a Pentax "K" lens mount on the camera, meaning the K-01 is compatible with just about every lens Pentax has ever produced.

The K-01 is also very useful in dim lighting conditions, thanks largely to its low noise levels. Even with noise reduction turned completely off, image grain did not become distracting until ISO 6400, at which point image quality sharply fell off. One issue in low light is autofocus, as the camera was quite loud and a little too slow to track moving subjects.

With such a large body, the lack of any viewfinder is a disappointment, though the rear 3-inch LCD monitor is responsive enough for accurate framing and focusing. We've already mentioned the handling difficulties that result from this experimental body design, with the button layout requiring some gymnastics at times. The customizable green button on top, for example, is so far out of reach that it's effectively useless without completely changing your grip on the body.

We met the Pentax K-01 with skepticism, but ultimately stood corrected. Fans of the aesthetic will be more than satisfied with performance under the hood. The capabilities of this camera are on equal footing with Pentax's top consumer DSLR (the roughly $1,100 K-5) and with a $900 MSRP, we'd actually consider the K-01 a decent deal. If you appreciate this model's design, or can at least put up with it, the K-01 comes highly recommended.

—

Read Reviewed.com's full in-depth review of the Pentax K-01 at DigitalCameraInfo.com. Reviewed.com is a division of USA TODAY.