You'll love the S6, December 11, 2005
Reviewer: Lymphoma Survivor "11 years :-)"
Other reviews give some of the pros and cons - I'll expand on them.

I will assume you are looking at this camera because you want a very small but feature laden shooter. This camera will not disappoint in that respect. It is actually the only one I found that can be held with one hand - the nubs below the zoom allow this where other small cameras have controls all over the back, disallowing one handed operation.

You can overcome some of the cons listed by others by buying a fast (100x to 150x) SD memory card (I got a Corsair 2GB 133x card). The prices are coming down thank goodness.

A unique feature is the ability to use a remote control for zoom and shutter activation. I liked this in a Pentax film camera I bought 10 years ago. I thought I'd have to buy a modern version but I retrieved my old remote, set the S6 into remote mode and it worked! I amazed my friends on a recent trip with this.

The rear display also is bright and clear (also impresses others).

You'll definitely enjoy this camera. And it's size and weight will not drag you down - you'll be tempted to take it more often, allowing you to capture those moments when a grainy phonecam can't.
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Nice form factor, but flawed, December 3, 2005
Reviewer: King Of All Gadgets
I bought the S6 to replace the original Optio S, which I accidentally dropped. I also considered buying the Casio EX-S500, which is said to have faster shutter response, good quality photos and better battery life, but requires a dock for all its connections and has a smaller screen.

Since I already had an extra set of accessories (battery, charger, etc), I took the plunge on an S6. My take so far:

Pros:
- great form factor
- intuitive menus
- full screen, unlimited movie mode (can't zoom during it, but only a few photo cameras permit this)
- Large screen - 2.5 in
- lots of scene options and manual controls

Cons:
- Poor battery life - not close to the 130 photos promised
- Absolutely dumb shutter button design - it's actually hard to take a photo without pressing really hard. Most presses just result in the auto focus activating, but no photo.
- Shutter Lag - assuming you do press the dumb button properly and it does take a picture, there is definitely a lag. This is similar to my old Optio - they should really have perfected this by now - how embarrasing.
- Viewing photos takes forever!! Apparently, the camera has a very slow processor, so when you want to view your photos, it first shows a semi-blurry image then....finally...the full resolution image. I wouldn't mind it as much, if you could advance to the next image during all this. You can't. You have to wait and wait for the full resolution photo to finally appear.
- Only average photo quality.
- Autofocus slow in standard mode (wider area). The instruction manual won't tell you this, but if you reduce the focus area, performance and shutter lag decreases significantly. Not intuitive. Also has a quick, but grainy Pan-Focus mode.

Conclusion:
I can (and plan to) live with the flaws of this neat looking camera; however, I can only imagine the headache when I ask someone else to take a picture with it and I have to explain the dumb shutter button 10 times. I would strongly recommend checking out all of the cameras you're considering in person before ordering to ensure you can live with the lags, screen delays, etc. Generally, I would recommend Canons, which take consistently great pictures and don't suffer from these kinds of design flaws - except for one. Canons have only uncompressed movie modes, which means the memory will fill up within a few minutes. Once their cameras get MPEG-4 movie compression, I am there.
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Pentax Optio S6 Comparatively, November 4, 2005
Reviewer: C. Harper

The Pentax Optio S6 is a great camera for its size. I own the original Optio S and the little "nub" that controls most of the functions finally frustrated me into looking for a new camera.

I went into a local retailer thinking I would upgrade to another ultracompact, but not really expecting to buy the latest Pentax. I compared the Canon PowerShot SD400, Sony CyberShot DSC-T5, Nikon CoolPix S3, Pentax Optio S6, and Casio Exilim EX-Z500.

The contrast that struck me the most was screen resolution on the camera displays. Both the Sony and Pentax had over 230,000 pixels on the 2.5" screens and they were far superior to the Canon, Nikon, and Casio (with approx. 120,000 pixels each).

I tend to leave my pictures on a 1GB card for a long time and show them off from the camera, so screen resolution was important. From reading numerous reviews, it seems the Canon and Nikon offer the highest quality pictures overall, but the low screen resolution was very noticeable on these large displays.

Otherwise, all the cameras started up very quickly and were easy to use as a point-and-shoot camera should be. I chose the Pentax over the Sony because it was easier to hold and my finger kept getting in the picture with the Sony. Also, the Pentax still fits in the altoids tin!

I've used the Pentax for a week now and I'm very happy with the picture quality, incredibly small size, and ease of use. The battery life is average for an ultracompact and the picture modes actually work well.

I give it four stars instead of five because it only has 6 stops on the optical zoom. I definitely recommend the Pentax Optio S6 if you're considering an ultracompact camera.

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