Pentax Optio WG-1 Pro Reviews

With Olympus, Panasonic and others all offering compact cameras made from tough stuff, the adventure imaging market is getting more and more competitive. This elongated shooter's £220 is a high price for any compact camera, even one with knobs on, and though it's not perfect indoors, it excels in bright light and is easy to travel and trek with. As such, we'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind paying slightly over the odds for a reasonably capable camera that can be slung in a pocket or backpack and not worried about.

Essentially, the Pentax Optio WG-1 GPS is well thought out with a bunch of stuff for the user to do and bring some fun into photography. It will cope with most areas of the world as long as you don't go too high or deep. So if you're looking for a tough camera to take on a special trip around the world and you want to document where you were as well as what happened, then the WG-1 GPS will do all that for you.

There's something to be said for a camera like the Pentax Optio WG-1 GPS that can deal with very harsh conditions without any hair-pulling and heartbreak. We've all had the instant of fear when the camera slips out of your hand and hits the ground, offering prayers to the camera gods hoping it survived. With the WG-1 GPS your prayers will be answered. But--and this is a huge but, picture quality is so substandard that we really can't recommend it for all the fun we had testing its "proofs." Video is especially disappointing. If all you're planning on doing is making 8x10-inch prints, the Pentax WG-1 GPS will serve, and allow you to record your track as you trek through the world, but be aware that it's not the best image quality you can get for the money; however, selling in some places for under US$300 online, it might be a good camera to strap to your life vest just for fun.

All in all, the Pentax Optio WG-1 with GPS is a nice camera if you need one that is super rugged – the price might be a bit high for the performance and features though. If you do need something that can withstand most of the situations you’ll face in life and price is no option, you really can’t go wrong here. While other rugged cameras might have a faster recycle speed, or a better zoom – there’s always a tradeoff weather it be even higher cost, less features, or something else.

The cute-but-tough Pentax Optio WG-1 is built to withstand the elements, its image and video quality, though, aren't up to par with some competitors.

If you're in the market for a compact that can brave the elements while producing good images, the Pentax WG-1 series deserves serious consideration.

With its moulded facia and in-your-face extreme sports styling, the WG-1 certainly manages to stand out from the tough compact crowd. Image quality isn’t bad either, especially when used on Auto Picture mode. And while the zoom control can prove a bit fiddly and imprecise, it remains a fairly simple camera to operate overall. Perhaps most importantly, in terms of overall build quality, the WB-1 is one of the toughest ‘tough’ cameras currently on the market. If that’s your primary consideration then the WG-1 deserves to be at, or at least near, the top of your short-list.