Best for the money.

Despite being an entry-level Pentax, it does have a few 'bests' under its belt for me particularly in its price bracket (actually lets be honest...at its price bracket it is unarguably the *best* buy of any model and brand there is).

IMO best 16MP AA-filtered (AA filtering is a good thing IMO) Sony sensor with good skin tones in DSLR form. I am not a fan of Sony's skin tones on the A6000, or the skin tones I've seen out of entry level Nikons with Sony sensors (nor a fan of AAless without built in AA filter simulation modes). Don't care about 24MP vs 16 that much as I find when you are shooting against limits of shutter speed, subject movement, or tough lighting...it is rare you ever utilize the full extent of 16MP much less 24MP. One of the *best* reasons to have a 24MP APS-C sensor is actually moire/aliasing reduction. Something that Nikon will *NOT* give you unless you plan on intentionally shooting with soft lenses and poor technique. In camera RAW processing is also a nice feature (A6000 cannot do this yet it has built in wi-fi so go figure). 12-bit is not an issue in DR, the files are nice and compact and jam-packed with DR information far exceeding what you can get with Canon full-frame and slightly better than the A6000 in DR as well IMO.

Best controls and overall body with pentaprism OVF, etc by far in its class. All the modes, dials, OVF LCD displays are *geared* for ultimate exposure control. The Sony sensor is great at ISO invariant type shooting and OVFs actually lend themselves well to ISO invariant shooting as do all the controls and display feedback you get. If the camera *thinks* you are blowing highlights...it *warns* you in a visually satisfying manner *through* the OVF...something I don't remember my 6D or doing as well. ISO invariant shooting is actually *less* satisfying with something like the A6000 liveview/EVF which I won't go into that much detail but the whole WYSIWYG is not the best when it comes to ISO invariant shooting otherwise you underexposed dark EVFs/liveviews essentially. Not an issue with the nice pentaprism OVF.

MFA is a boon, I have already dialed in my 50mm 1.8 at -4 as the best setting. Don't think MFA is that important? Well I can guarantee a 16MP MFA-capable body is going to often outrsesolve a 24MP non-MFA capable Nikon DSLR quite often.

Shallow vs Deep lens mount flange. When you have a shallow lens mount like a Sony A6000, you can create slim slim bodies. Unfortunately if you start building up a lens collection *every* lens makes up for the shallow lens mount by having extra 'chassis' on any given lens of normal to tele focal lengths. In fact unlike my EOS-M which has a terrific 22mm f2 pancake...there are *NO* satisfyingly *good* and fast pancake available for Sony E-mount. There is the 16-50 slow kit lens, but really its poor compared to the WR Pentax 18-55 in haptics, weather sealing, and IQ. Many Pentax lenses leave the *chassis* on the *body* meaning when you carry multiple primes and lenses, you have a *NET* reduction in size/weight because the chassis is accounted for *once* on the body. Also the deep mount + mirror reduces a lot of on-sensor dust during lens swap vs very shallow mount mirrorless.

AF is good enough...it doesn't proclaim to be a leader in any one category, but they do provide a good amount of cross points AF a good distance away from center with good control on moving the AF points, etc. This is something the Canon 6D doesn't even have (i.e. more than 1 cross point). Even Nikon's leading edge AF puts a large amount of AF points all over, but the # of cross points only covers a slim rectangle dead center. Canon starts to offer MFA and good cross point coverage only from 70D and up. However consider the MFA, catch in focus modes, and *leading* class liveview AF speed, focus peaking, and the overall package is not that shabby in terms of AF at all. Also great one click zoom on chimping modes...something Nikon thinks requires premium bodies like the D750 to have.

Only DSLR with IBIS. This gives it pretty good low light capability...in fact its better than the A6000 which does have some good stabilized lenses, but due to being mirrorless, *many* mirrorless cameras are at a disadvantage in sensor thermal heat since they are always *on* all the time vs DSLR's which keep the sensor idle when using OVF.

All the lenses I've tried so far are quite good, I will provide a few samples of all lenses I've tried so far, ISO in exif's not really accurate as I shoot in ISO invariant manner all the time. The *only* lens I have for my A6000 now is the 50mm 1.8. I *know* Sony kit lenses are not as good as Pentax...their budget tele is not as good as Pentax's WR budget tele. The Sony 50mm 1.8 OSS is great, but is $250 vs my nearly free Pentax 50mm 1.8 (and again due to shallow vs deep mount, the Pentax lens is smaller). The Sony 35mm 1.8 OSS purchase at $450 alone rivals the purchase price of an *entire* K-50 system including 2 decently fast primes!

The color choice of the Pentax is actually nice...I happen to really like mine in white. IMO DSLRs can be so boring lately that I don't mind showing off the white K-50 out in public, etc. If I want discreet I can use my A6000 or EOS-M which also tend to have the quieter AF and shutter releases anyhow.

50mm 1.8 wide open at 1/30th a commonly poor shutter speed in terms of vibration for many DSLRs, but quite decent here

18-55 at 35mm wide open

18-55mm at 55mm wide open

18-55 WR kit at 18mm wide open

50mm 1.8

200mm budget tele

35mm f2.4, good AF

35mm f2.4

50mm 1.8 heavily stabilized via IBIS

In summary -

Ridiculously cheap bundle deals lately (something never really covered by DPReview staff as they just highlight the latest greatest marked up presale purchases).

Best skin tones out of a high dynamic range Sony sensor in DSLR form IMO with thankfully AA filter intact.

Best exposure control not only in excellent controls and visual feedback via both OVF or liveview, but in terms of shutter speed of 1/6k vs 4k, and IBIS capabilities.

AF is not only satisfactory, but if you account for MFA, cross point frame coverage, catch in focus, and liveview performance and focus peaking, it is overall quite good.

Lenses so far have been both cheap, tiny, and high quality with the 'budget' kit lenses being WR to boot. Just examine my full-size images of the 18-55 WR at 3 focal points...you will not get that overall consistency from many recent Sony/Nikon pancake or retractable kits IMO. Not sure how the new Pentax retractable will do.

My only nitpick is AF sound and the 1/180th flash sync speed that is enforced by the body (some cameras can go past rated sync speed with manual flash, etc such as my A6000 at 1/250).