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(Credit: Sony Electronics)

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1 and DSC-WX1 are both 10-megapixel cameras, which in and of itself is not that impressive. What is impressive is the back-illuminated CMOS sensor, the Exmor R, that they use. The sensor is based on those found in Sony digital SLRs and promises to deliver improved low-light performance without help from a flash or tripod. According to Sony, the new design has "approximately twice the sensitivity compared to conventional sensors."

Both cameras incorporate the hand-held twilight and antimotion blur multishot modes introduced in the Cyber-shot DSC-HX1. They also get that model's sweeping panorama shooting capabilities. However, that thing is a large, 20x megazoom camera, whereas these are very much not. The TX1--like all of the T-series models--is a very thin camera at 0.7-inch thick and has few physical controls, instead relying on a revamped 3-inch touch-screen interface. The WX1 is only slightly thicker at 0.8 inch.

So the TX1 has its small body and touch-screen LCD going for it, but its lens specifications are less impressive than those of WX1. It is folded inside the body, which is nice, but it's a 4x f3.5-4.6 35-140mm-equivalent lens; the WX1 has a 5x f2.4-7.1 24-120mm-equivalent lens. At f2.4 you'll get a lot more light in, further improving its performance in dim lighting. Plus, 24mm is considerably wider than 35mm. You'll have to decide what's more important--portability and a flashy design and interface or shooting flexibility and $30.

The TX1 camera will come in silver, gray, pink, and blue this September for about $380. The WX1 camera will be available in black this October for about $350.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1 photos

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX1 photos

Sony Ericsson C905a photos

Even though the Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot C905 was announced almost a year ago, the North American version (C905a) has finally graced our shores courtesy of AT&T. This 8.1-megapixel camera phone is one of a few high-megapixel camera phones to make it stateside, and since it's subsidized with a U.S. carrier, it's relatively inexpensive as well.

Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot C905a

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

The C905a has all the styling of a Cyber-shot point-and-shoot camera, with its large 2.4-inch scratch-resistant display, Xenon flash, and camera lens with a sliding lens cover. The camera also has a ton of settings like panorama stitching, several scene modes, macro focus, red-eye reduction, face detection, and even GPS geolocation tagging. There's also a BestPic feature that takes seven successive photos, letting you pick the best ones. Photo quality is really good, and definitely qualifies it as one of the best camera phones we've used.

We were also pleased with the music player, which has categories for audiobooks and podcasts--not something we usually see in non-smartphones. Our one complaint is that the C905a doesn't come with a 3.5-mm headset jack; we had to use Sony Ericsson's own proprietary headset connector. The C905a also uses the Memory Stick Micro (M2) format over the more common microSD. Still, the C905a has stereo Bluetooth, so not all is lost.

Other features of the C905a include GPS with AT&T Navigator, quad-band support, 3G/HSDPA, and access to AT&T broadband services like Cellular Video, AT&T Video Share, and AT&T Mobile Music. The Sony Ericsson C905a is available for $179.99 after a mail-in rebate and a two-year service agreement, and will be available on July 19.

Read our full review of the Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot C905.

(Credit: Sony)

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T900 is one of those cameras that you pay more for because of its coolness. A camera so small you'll likely forget it's in your pocket, yet it has all the latest "auto" features Sony has in its point-and-shoot arsenal, a 12-megapixel resolution, and captures 720p HD movies.

The T900 may be a good, fast snapshot camera that's very attractive and extremely compact, but its battery life is a little short, its touch screen won't please everyone, and some will find the photo quality unworthy of the camera's price tag. In this case, though, you're paying for the great design more than for great photos.

Read the full review and see some sample photos taken with the T900 through the slideshow below. Or just read the review. Your call.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T900 photos

Sony Ericsson C901

(Credit: Sony Ericsson)

Sony Ericsson did more than just announce its new "GreenHeart" strategy Thursday, the company also unveiled two new Earth-friendly cell phones. According to Sony Ericsson, the Naite and the C901 Cyber-shot will help it reach its goal of a 20 percent carbon footprint reduction by 2015. The handsets offer such features as recycled plastic, low-power chargers, and waterborne paints. Also, by including electronic, rather than paper user manuals, Sony Ericsson said it can reduce packaging size. The company promises that the overall carbon footprint of each phone will be reduced by 15 percent.

Both the Naite and the C901 have standard candy bar designs with trim profiles. The 262,144-color displays looked sharp during my brief hands-on, and I didn't notice any immediate problems with their navigation controls and keypad buttons. That's a good sign considering Sony Ericsson doesn't have the best track record when designing user controls. On the downside, while the recent Sony Ericsson W995a has a 3.5mm headset jack, the Naite and C901 have proprietary jacks.

The C901's sliding lens cover.

(Credit: Kent German/CNET)

The C901 and Naite are quad-band GSM world phones, but the C901 only supports 3G networks outside of North America. The Naite, which comes in red and silver designs, should be out by the third quarter of 2009. The C901, which will be available only in white, should go on sale during the second quarter of this year.

Features on both phones are mid-range, but are more plentiful than Motorola's Renew W233 recycled phone. As a Cyber-shot phone, the C901 centers on its camera. The 5-megapixel shooter captures still photos and video and it includes such options as auto-focus, photo geo-tagging, and a Xenon flash with red-eye reduction. The camera lens on the phone's rear side has a sliding cover.

Sony Ericsson Naite

(Credit: Sony Ericsson)

The C901 also promises a music player, stereo Bluetooth, a speakerphone, messaging and POP3 e-mail, instant messaging, USB mass storage, motion gaming, PC syncing, an FM radio, a wireless Web browser, and a personal organizer. And back on the green front, you can use the C901's navigation toggle to adjust the display's brightness level and save battery life. Having those controls on the toggle saves you from digging through a menu.

The Naite has a 2-megapixel camera and camcorder, a music player, a wireless Web browser, a speakerphone, messaging and POP3 e-mail, instant messaging, an FM radio, stereo Bluetooth, Google Maps, USB Mass storage, PC syncing, and a personal organizer. Like the C901 the Naite has a special Walkmate pedometer, which also tells you how much carbon emissions your steps are saving

It was a long time coming, but we have a full review up of the very, very popular Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77. On the upside, it can now be found for $60 less than its original $299 price, and it's no less of a camera. Well, aside from it being less of camera.

The T77 is impossibly small, though still able to capture good photos (if a little on the soft side). It's easy to see why the T77 is so popular, with its 3-inch touch-screen controls, a 4x optical zoom, and 10-megapixel resolution. And it's fast for an ultracompact camera--especially one that's only 0.6 inch thick.

Did I mention how small it is?

Read the full review of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77

(Credit: Sony)

Camera manufacturers seem to have chosen megazooms as their latest battlefield--and thankfully, the fight isn't just about who's got the biggest lens. In this case, the latest player comes from Sony, whose new Cyber-shot DSC-HX1 incorporates several technologies from its Alpha DSLR products, including a 1/2.4-inch 10-megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor (for 9-megapixel images) and 20X f2.8-5.2 28-560mm-equivalent optically stabilized lens based on the company's higher-quality G series lenses.

In theory, the combination should deliver better photo quality than we're used to seeing in this class. (We haven't yet had a chance to review its primary--and also CMOS-based--competitor the Canon PowerShot SX1 IS, but it's been shipping overseas for a little while, so you can read CNET Australia's take on it).

In addition, Sony introduces several interesting continuous shooting modes: an intriguing Dynamic Ultrawide panorama mode that captures sequential images as you slowly pan across a scene and automatically stitches them into a 7,152x1,080 photo; a 10 frame-per-second 10-shot continuous shooting mode that uses a mechanical rather than electronic shutter for, the company claims, less distortion; and Handheld Twilight mode, which combines multiple exposures for a theoretically lower noise, higher detail low-light photo.

The W290 comes in a rather subdued palette of colors.

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

Joining the lower-middle middle-class W220 that Sony announced at CES are the $199 middle middle-class W230 and $249 upper-middle middle-class W290. (Sorry folks, but I'm running out of ways to describe midpriced cameras.) While the W230 only differs from the W220 by $10 and LCD size--it's 3 inches vs. 2.7--the W290 has the same resolution and LCD as the W230 but with a significantly more flexible lens and better movie capture capabilities.

Photos: Sony Cyber-shot W models for spring

In fact, based on the specifications the W290 sounds like a better deal than the W300. It's about $80 less (including Sony recent price drop on the W300 by $20). And though it's only 12 megapixels compared with the W300's 13.6, that's a pretty trivial difference compared with the nontrivial advantage the W290's 3-inch LCD, wide-angle 5x 28-140mm-equivalent lens, and 30fps 720p MPEG-4 movie capture offer over the W300's 2.7-incher, narrow angle 3x zoom lens, and VGA video. The W290 also includes Sony's latest automatic scene- and face-detection technologies, and doesn't include the hideously annoying and confusing Home menu anymore. If it's not abysmally slow and doesn't produce terrible photos, I think the W290 might be a mainstream contender for 2009. We'll get one, get going, and get back to you when it's available later this spring.

The Sony Cyber-shot S950 gets a more megapixeled brother.

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

Because the way sales channels operate forces manufacturers to create too many product SKUs, Sony has announced the Cyber-shot S980--it's identical to the S950, but costs $20 more for 12 megapixels rather than 10. Chances are the street prices will converge a month after it ships in March for $149.

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

A modest upgrade over last year's Cyber-shot DSC-H10, this spring's DSC-H20 nevertheless offers a few new nice improvements over its budget megazoom predecessor. Though it keeps the same 10x f3.5-4.4 38-380mm (35mm equivalent) lens and 3-inch LCD, the $279 camera bumps up to a 1/2.3-inch 10-megapixel CCD from 8 megapixels. We complained about the H10's lack of optical zoom in movie capture, and the H20 now supports it. Plus, it now shoots 720p MPEG-4 videos. Like many of the spring models, the H10 will include Sony's updated intelligent auto features, including more advanced automatic scene recognition and auto face detection.