Will Pentax make a KP II?

henricoo wrote:

I do hope there will be a KP successor. I do hope there will be:

1. A K1iii; full loaded flag ship FF with K3iii steroids
2. The K3iii; it's already there as the flagship APS-C
3. A KPii; a compact APS-C
4. A new 645 with 100 MP

I own the KP besides the K1ii and it is a lovely compact solid performer. I use it as a Point & Shoot with the M20, M28 and XS40 and for tele work with the K135 2.5 and K200 4. At their sweet spot apertures these serve the 24 Mp sensor well.

I think a K-1miii is a given. The only thing that might stand in the way of it being the next out the gate is scaling the K-3miii innovations to FF. An updated lower-end APS-C might be much easier technically, because there you're only figuring out what/how to cut, not blazing new ground. So if they're working on both, then the APS-C team could finish faster.

On the other hand, whether the next entry APS-C should look more like a KP, or more like a K-70 (or K-5) could take a while to sort out, and has serious technical implications. It's not just a marketing decision. Two obvious issues: the sensor mount in the K-3miii is thicker--figure out how to shrink it more? Or give up the KP's compactness? And if you go with compactness, that probably means the lower capacity battery--no hope of standardizing up on the Li90 battery. So figuring out the design goals and working within those constraints might be as hard as producing a FF flagship.

Finally, I think the 645 has left the building.