Model Design / Appearance
The camera design for the Pentax Optio T10 is a sleek aluminum face with a polished horizontal silver bar which breaks up the otherwise smooth front face of the camera. The back of the camera features glossy black plastic with a large LCD screen. With only four controls located on the body of the camera and only two neatly tucked away ports, the exterior of the camera is devoid of any real design flaws that would detract from the otherwise clean and uncluttered look. By placing the controls of the camera within a touch screen system Pentax has really been able to clean up the body of the camera and produce a result that is small, compact and attractive. The construction of the camera is solid and durable, with all adjoining parts and seams constructed with concise accuracy. Models in Europe and Japan will feature front faces with slightly different palettes and metal finishes.

Size / Portability
The Pentax Optio T10 is certainly a portable camera, due to both the light overall weight and the small compact size. This camera is a clean rectangle without unnecessary protrusions or features that could snag on a pocket or in a bag of other belongings. The T10 is certainly a pocket-sized model, easy to carry out on the town for a night in either a back pocket or a purse, and could even prove a reliable conversation piece due to the sleek exterior. The camera weighs 5.5 ounces with all accessories in place and has measurements of just 3.7 inches in length by 2.3 inches in height by 0.8 inches in thickness.

Handling Ability
With so few external controls and a well designed menu system, Pentax has designed a camera that is minimal and efficient, functioning well beyond the design concept. The navigation of the LCD menu system may be done with either finger or stylus and the controls that are onscreen are both well sized and well labeled for clarity and ease. Even larger fingers will be able to smoothly move through the menu. The camera did freeze once during our evaluation, however, this was likely due to a glitch in the particular pre-production model we were looking at rather than an actual deficiency in the product. In our full review of the T10 we will look into this issue further.

Physically and externally, the small size of the camera makes it possible to get a good grip when shooting with one or two hands. The small sections of grip are positioned well to provide enough additional security.

Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size
Exterior control buttons on the Optio T10 are minimal: on/off, shutter, zoom, playback and menu. The controls on the top of the camera are comfortably accessed and engaged with the index finger of the right hand, but the zoom ring surrounding the shutter button doesn’t really provide a satisfying level of minute control over zoom when shooting quickly. Large jumps in zoom levels are likely to occur when shooting with this style of zoom control. The playback and menu buttons on the back of the camera are well placed for the thumb of the right hand and are well labeled for use when shooting, reviewing and navigating menu structures.

Touch screen controls, buttons and navigation is a blessedly simple process, which comes as a surprise. Many of the touch screen interface systems we have encountered in the past have been bogged down by petite onscreen controls, cramped features, overly complex menu layouts and other problems. The T10 sports well sized controls that can be accessed and navigated without the user becoming flustered. Included with the purchase of the digital camera is a stylus which can be attached to the right hand strap, although if it is lost, the menu layout is still more than amply sized for control with a fingertip.

Menu
The menu structure for the Pentax Optio T10 is navigated through the touch screen interface, is easily entered by either tapping the LCD or pressing the menu button located to the right side of the screen. The initial menu is a shortcut menu which accesses flash, burst, shooting mode and focus, while the menu button allows access to a wider range of manual control features and other options.

The shooting mode settings for the Pentax Optio T10 are Program, Landscape, Flower, Portrait, Night Scene, Surf and Snow, Food, Sport, Pet and Frame. The shooting mode options are displayed as simple drawings on the LCD, all provided with a full text descriptions so that users unsure of setting parameters have some guidance.

The first menu encountered after the menu button is pressed in shooting mode displays the following options, with large buttons and well spaced layout: Rec. Mode 1, Rec. Mode 2, Movie, Common, Sound and Setting submenu options. These menu options appear on the LCD and are transparent overlays that allow the user to constantly monitor the image frame while altering and moving through the entire menu structure.

Rec. Mode 1 menu gives the user access to the following manual control options via six spacious controls: image size, image quality, white balance, focus, metering and sensitivity levels. Rec. Mode 2 menu gives access to more image control options: EV. Compensation, Auto Bracket, 1 second instant review, sharpness, saturation and contrast. The Movie menu provides the controls for shooting in movie mode, and this menu has options for movie size, movie resolution, and frame rate control.

In the Common menu only three controls can be altered, allowing access to digital zoom, memory and FN setting. The Sound menu has a surprising number of six overall settings, with access to operation volume, playback volume, start-up sound, shutter sound, operation sound and self-timer sound. With this many options it is hard to imagine that users would need additional audio control, considering this is primarily a digital still camera with video hybrid functionality included as an extra additional feature.

And finally the last menu option in shooting mode provides access to the settings for the Pentax Optio T10 layout and other setup options. The Setup menu has the following settings: format, date adjustment, world time, language, folder name and USB connection.

When the user has placed the Pentax Optio T10 in review mode, they will find that there is another menu structure system that displays four initial submenu options for playback image control. These four menu options are Mode Palette, Playback Zoom, Rotate and Delete options. The mode palette option displays a plethora of image effects options and settings to provide a wealth of image manipulation opportunities from drawing on the image surface to stamping to cropping and shifting images. These controls, like the menus found in shooting mode, appear as transparencies over images previously captured by the user prior to entering into playback mode. The control options within the submenu allow the user to engage slideshow, resize, rotation, trimming, image and sound copy, digital effects, movie edit, red-eye compensation, voice memo, protect, DPOF, start-up Image setting and the drawing feature.

Ease of Use
The Pentax Optio T10 excels in the ease of use category, in part due to a minimal number of manual controls as well as the intuitive nature of the whole menu structure. The menu structure features large, transparent “buttons” that have prominent labels that are full or nearly full text with accompanying setting levels and other information. While it does seem a bit odd to have menus with only three controls present, as is the case of the common menu, it isn’t hard to navigate back and forth between menu pages. After about five minutes or so, even the most technophobic user should have a reasonable comfort level and awareness of how to navigate though the menu layout.

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