Bob - you said: > "It means most of today's digital camera > market is computer geeks. That's a surprising thought..."
1. I took my new 330RS on a one week vacation trip. I also took a laptop with me. I cannot begin to imagine how frustrating it would be to work with just one or two memory cards, viewing on the camera's LCD screen to decide whether to delete to make space or to save . . . I did delete a few along the way, but mostly reserved judgement for later. Brought back 1000+ images. And, it turned out that one of the really positive aspects of the system was being able to do a "slide show" on the laptop each night to review and relive what we had done that day. Non-geeks would miss a great deal, and would probably quickly store away the camera. 2. I see many digital cameras listed in computer catalogs and advertised in computer magazines. I have yet to see the Optio in that venue. If the geeks are indeed a key market segment, Pentax isn't there yet. 3. The island I went to is Tax-Free - the whole island. Many consumer electronics stores. A couple of photo stores. I found one place that wasn't into gouging cruise ship customers, asked him about digital sales. He said that the 430RS was one of his main sellers, along with the small Minolta and small Canon. My conclusion: people buying on a whim go for cute and convenient. stan > on 11/27/02 8:20 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Just a couple of thoughts... > > Mike J. noted that Pentax was moving a ton of Optio digital cameras. > Somebody else pointed to a Japanese article last week, calling this > time the sweet spot in the market, suggesting that volume was big > enough and costs were now low enough to make profits in the category. > > Pentax looks pretty good here, if your focus is making money. This is > the same Mass Market position Pentax has always aimed for. Did they > follow a plan and successfully execute it? > > Sony, Fuji, Kodak and others have the Mass Market tied up in the USA. > They are the ones in the Big Box retail stores, the ones selling electronics > and video equipment for Christmas. > > 2nd thought... > > A woman at work asked me to recommend a digital camera. I told her where to > look, but had 2nd thoughts the next day. > > She is not computer illiterate, but I wasn't sure how much equipment she has > at home. I talked to here about it later in the week. She has 2 young kids > under 6. I could see her hard disk going down and here losing the last 5 > years of family photos. > > We all are pretty computer savvy here. We have CD burners to cut our > pictures to. We have classy printers and photo programs to manipulate the > images and print them. It's a lot of equipment and know-how that goes into > having digital images. > > We both came to the conclusion that what she needed was a new film based > point-n-shoot, not a digital camera. It means most of today's digital camera > market is computer geeks. That's a surprising thought... > > Regards, Bob S. > >
