Why did they distibute the E10 knowing of all these problems? they had to know thru r & d.

R&D staff, of any company for the matter, actually face a lot of pressure all the time, trying to produce new products every year that can compete with other makes on the same footing, and make sure these sell well and make money for the company.

E10 was marketed as one of the cheapest 6 megapixel camera during it's time. I bought one for the reason and used it for some years before giving it away.

I found it very handy, don't give me problems, not even with the batteries if you charge it daily. It does not have ' that many problems' like the OP mention. In fact many other compact P&S were worse off, with CCD failures affecting so many makes and models .

Market competition for cameras have shifted grounds to high megapixels CCDs, image stabilization and what have you, there is no point going back to E10 and trying to iron out the battery problem, if any, and for a $75/= camera there is no point expecting wonders.

It is too hasty to say " ..... its the last one I'll ever own ", because of a $75 camera, while there are plenty of choices in the stable that win the hearts of Pentax fans. Pentax dSLRs are very good if you ever handle one, while some models on this page probably wows a lot of people.

With so much pressure, and so much improvements made over the years, I must say Pentax R&D staff really do their job well to come out with quite a few quality dSLRs and many more compact P&S to keep the company afloat in the highly competitive market, while old favourites like Yashica, Minolta and Contax have call it a day.