Sanyo slims down
Sanyo's Xacti series started off as one of the first all-in-one portable devices on the market.
They were pocket-sized, took fairly good photos and videos, and even played MP3s. The problem was, they didn't do each of those individual functions extremely well.
Pictures taken with an Xacti weren't anywhere near the quality from a standalone digital camera, and the video function seemed like a last minute add-on, instead of being a major feature.
The Xactis started featuring beefed up video quality in later lines, providing users with a credible and ultraportable camcorder.
The latest model, Xacti DMX-C6, further pushes image resolution to
6 megapixels for still images while boosting the video playback mode and the size of the LCD screen.
Although it only records video at VGA quality - equal to a standard television - it has a speed of 30 fps (frames per second) and comes with 'individual moving detection' technology which doubles the number of frames of the video and plays it back at a higher frame rate of 60fps on the 5cm display, or on an external monitor.
By playing more frames per second, the video footage should appear to be smoother and of higher quality.
Despite these improvements, Sanyo has managed to further reduce the size of the Xacti, making it the world's thinnest (23mm) and lightest (140 gram) video camera.
The main reason it's so small is that all Xacti models use SD cards as memory, which is expensive in high capacity versions.
Some may regard the Xacti C6 as a digital camera with good video capabilities, while others may consider it an average video camera with good still imaging.
At an estimated price of about $5,500, the Xacti C6 is nearly the same price as more advanced camcorders from Canon and JVC, and nearly double the price of digital cameras offering roughly the same features.
PROS:
small and light; 6 megapixel still images; 60 frame per second video playback
CONS:
limited manual options
