Sony Cybershot TX1

Currently the market is producing this magnificent new imaging technology called back-illuminated CMOS sensor, Sony calls their brand Exmor R and currently Sony and Ricoh are the most prevalent manufacturers of this technology also Casio is following lead with some of their new cameras also having this within them.

image taken from Dpreview

The advantage of having this new sensor which is more common in the compact point-and-shoot market and Video cameras is it's huge improvement on signal-to-noise ratio which means that in low-light your sensor produces cleaner and usable images unlike the traditional CCD and typical CMOS sensor, now imagine Sony using this in their Alpha line up then that would incredibly improve the signal-to-noise ratio of their APS-C sized CMOS sensors.

Now enough of my geeky babbling, I happen to own a Cybershot TX1 which you've guessed contains a back illuminated cmos sensor that unlike the traditional Cybershot cameras which uses Sony's Super HAD CCD which is actually better than other CCD manufactured (yes I'm biased on Sony products hahaha) the new Exmor R sensor well it dissapoints me

This is my TX1 Front view

Pros:

-slimmer camera design

-4x optical zoom (38-1XX something fairly usable)

-optical steady shot

-large 3" resistive touch screen

-feel good to hold

-good metal feel

-does not attract fingerprints

-light and pocketable

-720p HD video recording at 30fps

-good battery life

-good image quality

-sweep panorama feature (this is a sweet feature)

-face detection

Cons:

-better noise handling but still unimpressive

-washes out fine detail in low light

-slow opeartion

-gallery mode is inconsistent

-limited in-camera-editing features

-harsh flash exposure (pictures looked over-exposed when using flash)

-red eye reduction seems useless (better stay away from using flash)

-Expensive at almost $550 here in the Philippines or 25,xxx+

Back View of tx1

Overall if you just need a stylish camera and you hate using a flash then this camera is very good for you, but if you're a power user and would prefer a feature rich manual-enabled camera than an automatic stylish one then I'll review another camera soon.