Sony DSC-M1 Movie & Still Camera

Juniper Foo | Sep 14, 2004

Hats off to the style-meisters for once again delighting us with a form that'll have you guessing it's anything but a Cyber-shot. The DSC-M1 could easily be mistaken for a chunkier cousin of Sony Ericsson's K500 camera-phone, until you crack open its body to reveal two sections attached by a 90-degree swivel. Half of that splits into an inverted L shape with a 2.5-inch LCD that can rotate 270 degrees. The other half pulls double duty as a 5.1-megapixel camera and MPEG-4 mini camcorder. Sony's gone even further with this transformer offering, doing a Vulcan meld of the still and video elements so every still snap captures several seconds of video before and after. Since it's not clear if this feature can be disabled, our advice: Start saving for that expensive Memory Stick you're going to need.

Click here for: Idea of size | front view | back view | closed | with cradle

Price: US$600
Availability: From December
Device: Digital camera-mini camcorder hybrid
Basic specs: 5.1 megapixels, 3x optical zoom, Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens, USB cradle, max. recording of 27 minutes on VGA resolution, 30fps with stereo sound on optional 512MB Memory Stick PRO Duo, or up to 54 minutes with optional 1GB card

Filed under: Digital Cameras
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