2005's EVOLT E-300 was quite a departure in SLR design, with a porromirror arranged on the side of the camera instead of a pentaprism mounted on top, and an onboard flash that could be used as fill in conjunction with a hot-shoe-mounted flash. It was interesting, though unattractive, and I didn't see much value. When the Olympus E-500 came out in the Fall, I thought they'd abandoned the E-300 in favor of more conventional design. Though I'd been told that the E-300 series wouldn't be going away, I thought that was just PR-speak for "We'll continue selling them until we run out." I assumed Olympus developed the excellent E-500 to take on the digital SLR market with a more traditional body, abandoning the more radical E-300 -- especially given that the price on the E-300 had dropped so dramatically.



Link: Imaging Resource