PENTAX Optio A40

We associate Pentax compacts with cheery, child-like styling, but the top-of-the-range Optio A40 is striving to be taken rather more seriously. Optical image stabilisation, a 12-megapixel resolution, fast performance and excellent image quality all bolste...

Optical image stabilisation; excellent image quality

Uninspiring specs; hard to take styling seriously

With a high-end price tag but middling specs, the Pentax Optio A40 doesn't stand out. Picture quality is first-class, with optical image stabilisation and dynamic range adjustment looking interesting, but the toy-like styling isn't for us

Matt Grayson gets to grips with the Pentax Optio A40. A camera with a name like a stretch of road that goes from Oxford to Haverfordwest.

Great build quality, Loads of features, Good quality lens, Fast and quiet operation

Noise, noise and more noise, Chooses wrong apertures in scene modes

I'm blown away by the feature set of this little compact and the build quality is excellent too. It's unfortunate that something has to give and with the Pentax Optio A40 it's noise control. Frankly, it's rubbish at it. It can't stop even a slight smatter...

The Pentax Optio A40 is the latest result of Pentax's tradition of producing simple, usable, ultracompact cameras that have high-quality optics.

The Pentax Optio A40 is a good, no-nonsense camera that captures pictures with surprisingly good image quality.