With so little to complain about and good image quality comparable to the best non-Fuji ultra-compact cameras, the waterproof Pentax Optio W10 is best waterproof ultra-compact digital camera reviewed so until now. Its body is waterproof at depths up to 1.5m (5ft) for a maximum of 30 minutes. Image quality is rather good with lower than average noise, good sharpness, color, exposure and focus accuracy. The main downside is the Optio W10's 2.5" LCD which is hard to see in bright light despite an anti-reflective coating. The second concern is that the transparent fixed lens cover tends to get dusty easily and needs to be protected by a soft case from accidental scratches.

Of course, if a waterproof or dust proof camera is not needed, there are a few other ultra-compact cameras which perform better in terms of image-quality, battery-life and speed of operation. Those would be the Fuji Finepix F30 and the Fuji Finepix F10. For a camera which stands even rougher environments, there is the recently review Olympus Stylus 720SW which is also shockproof but trails the Optio W10 in terms of image quality and speed of operation.