Product: Sony Cybershot U DSC-U50 Price: Likely to be about HK$2,000 Pros: Small, inexpensive, flexible Cons: Release unconfirmed, storage limited
Sony Japan has announced the latest in its popular Cybershot range of digital cameras for the consumer market.
Taking a leaf out of Nikon's design guide, the new camera's lens is a separate unit to the main body and its angle adjusts by up to 180 degrees while keeping the viewfinder vertical. What looks like a gimmick for the lazy proved popular among Nikon users. The flexibility allows you to take photos from waist-height or high above your head and still be able to see what you're shooting.
The Cybershot U DSC-U50 is the first Sony camera to use the postage-stamp-sized Memory Stick Pro and Pro Duo storage cards.
Until now, these cards have only been used in a couple of Sony-Ericsson and NTT phones, and a Sony Walkman. They have also been criticised for their rarity and low capacity, though a new generation of 512-megabyte cards due out later this year should put paid to that.
The 2.11-megapixel camera can capture MPEG1 silent video and jpeg pictures of up to 1632?1224 pixels.