Stealing a page from Sony’s lineup, Pentax endowed its newest point-and-shoot, the Optio V20 ($279) with smile detection. It did Sony one better, too, and threw in blink detection. The 8-megapixel camera also has 5X optical zoom, a 3-inch LCD screen, face detection, and Auto-Macro mode for quick close-ups.

Like Sony’s technology, Pentax’s smile detection automatically releases the shutter when it detects happy subjects. Blink detection has nothing to do with shutter release, but rather alerts you to blinkage after you’ve taken a shot. This seems a bit unnecessary, given that you already have a large 3-inch LCD on which to play back images. Having blink detection just means you don’t have to select playback mode before yelling, “Do over!”