Pentax Optio WG-1 GPS
If you love taking pictures outdoors, the Optio WG-1 GPS is the perfect camera for you. With its durable, waterproof, cold proof, and dust resistant construction, it can go wherever you do. It is designed to withstand falls up to 5 feet and is crush proof up to 220 pounds making it one less thing you have to worry about breaking.
My favorite part of the Optio was its waterproof feature. You can easily take pictures under water up to 33 feet making it great for snorkeling, beaches, and pools. Even if you are not doing a lot of swimming, you won’t have to worry about rain or accidental drops into pools. This is great for spring break with its ability to take pictures where regular cameras can’t.
Another one of the cameras perks is its GPS function. This would store the location of the pictures you take and provide you with the latitude and longitude where the shot was taken, or show you the location in Google Earth. The only drawback with this is that it would suck down the battery and took a few minutes to acquire satellites. While it was a fun feature to use, it would be best not to take advantage of it over long trips without the ability to recharge or replace your battery so you could extend its life.
Even though the Optio was 14 Megapixels, picture quality was still only average. It did pretty well as an underwater camera, but its pictures above water in normal conditions were noting spectacular. Pictures were sometimes dark or blurry and it only had a 5x optical zoom. Its 720p video recording was also nothing to brag about. These drawbacks however weren’t significant enough to negate the benefits you get from its design. If you don’t plan on taking advantage of its rugged features, it will be better to invest in a regular point and shoot camera.
With its durable construction, the WG-1 GPS is great for adventurers and people who are known to be a little clumsy. Plus you can impress all of your friends with a few underwater shots on vacation. It is priced at $349.95, but Pentax also offers a similar model that doesn’t include the GPS function which lowers the price by about 50 dollars.