Dud Pentax Camera Gets Dumped

It was a dud to start with despite it being designed by Australian Mark Newson, but now Pentax has killed of their mirrorless K-01 digital camera, nine months after spending tens of thousands sponsoring Australian Fashion Week in Sydney to launch the product to the “in crowd”.Distributed in Australia the Pentax Ricoh camera struggled up against similar offerings from Olympus, Nikon and Panasonic’s Lumix offerings.

CR Kennedy, the distributor of the struggling Pentax brand in Australia, is not saying how much stock they are holding in Australia.

When SmartHouse first saw this camera we described it as more of a “toy” than a mirrorless camera. It was bulky and poorly designed when compared to other mirrorless cameras on offer.

Designed to use the Pentax K-mount lenses it also had an APS-C sized sensor.

Designed by Australian Marc Newson, a furniture and watch designer. The large boxy design was ugly and struggled to fit comfortably in your hand.

Pentax claims that it is “most unlikely” that it will be replaced by a K-02.

Late last year, Pentax unveiled the Pentax Q10, the world’s smallest compact system camera. Featuring a small, compact camera sized sensor. The Q10 is now on sale in Australia.

Earlier this year, the company announced it would be making the Q10 available in 100 different colour combinations.