talking about latest gadgets. that’s the one i’ve ordered on the same day (thanks to stephan for hints):
sanyo xacti vpc-j1 ex (original page), ordered at byteline.ch with quite an amazing discount. further i’ve ordered the fastest sd-memory card currently available at panashop.ch. using this 256 mb 10 mbyte/s chip the cam will even be able to shoot short movies at 30 fps (vga resolution 640×480, including sound)
the other features are impressing as well:
– fastest camera of its category (wake-up 1.2 s, shutter-interval 1.6 s, playback 0.6 s, shutter delay 0.05 s)
– 2.8x optical zoom using a prism (= internal zoom)
– super-macro mode (2 cm)
– usb direct printing
– cross-platform image transfer (simply recognized as a usb storage device)
– 3.2 mpixel
– li-ion battery (accu) with very long runtime
– durable magnesia case
– last but not least: the first digital cam that actually *talks* to you ;) (-> talking navigation menu system)
the thing i’m rather sceptic about is the quality of the lenses and mechanics. sanyo clearly lacks the reputation of zeiss or leica just to name two. nevertheless i’m confident as i got told that sanyo is actually the world market leader with digital cameras if one also counts the rebranded (oem) cams. i’ll post my experiences regarding image quality. tbc..