Sony unveils upgrade to T-series thin camera range

August 20, 2007 —

Sony Corp. is upgrading its thin T-series digital still camera line with a new model that packs a larger display with a touch screen.

The DSC-T200 hasn't been officially announced by Sony yet but details of the camera were posted to its Sony Canada online shop over the weekend.

The stylings of the camera have not changed much from the T100 and so it looks similar at first glance, but a closer look at the rear reveals some changes. The buttons to the right of the 3-inch display on the T100 have gone and a larger, 3.5-inch widescreen display now takes up the entire back of the camera.

So how to navigate the menus with no buttons? Sony has fitted a touch screen on the display, allowing it to clear the back panel of everything else.

The touch-screen display is similar to that of Apple's iPhone but many of the functions are different. Sony's screen doesn't appear to support two-fingered touch -- the one trick that makes the iPhone's touch screen so special -- but can be used to work a variety of functions. For example, in "touch-it shooting" a tap of an object on the screen will focus the camera on that object while when viewing pictures the screen is used to navigate and even paint on photos taken earlier.

Other functions include a "smile shutter" that goes a step beyond the face detection modes common on cameras today. The DSC-T200 won't just find faces in the image and focus on them but in this mode it won't take a picture until it sees all smiles.

Major specifications are similar between the T200 and T100. Both have an 8.1-megapixel image sensor capable of taking pictures up to 3,264 pixels by 2,448 pixels and in front of the sensor sits a 5X optical zoom lens. It has the same Bionz processing engine.

The camera measures 93.5mm wide by 59.3mm high by 20.4mm deep and weighs 160 grams.

There's no word on when it will be available or the price. The current T100 that it seems destined to replace costs about US$400.

IDG News Service