Just less than four months after announcing the compact six megapixel Nikon D40, an upgrade to D40x status has been announced by Nikon just in time for this week's PMA show.
The two key differences between the D40 and the new D40x appear to be an upgrade to a ten megapixel sensor and an extension to the ISO sensitivity range.
Nikon has been going great guns with a well-balanced DSLR range and even out-selling Canon in some markets, so the D40x should strengthen that line up. It should be interesting to see how the D40x fits in between the original D40 and the next model up, the D80, in terms of market perception and sales.
On a technical note, we described the D40 as being enigmatic because it challenged the perceived wisdom of going for ever more megapixels, but the D40x has answered that. With a more tightly packed sensor chip, the move to a wider ISO range is also a technical fascination; normally as sensors get more pixels, the need is to limit the ISO range. However, in this case the range extension has been at the low end, so ISO 100 has been added, so the lower limit is no longer ISO 200.
As we're at PMA 07 in Las Vegas this week, fingers crossed, we'll get a chance to have a play with a new D40x.
