Sony's Cheap Digital Still Camera

Looks like digital cameras are finally getting within the price range of cheap news editors and other photography dilettantes. Yesterday, we saw a Fuji camera priced at around $1000, which is a bit pricey lest you really need what it has to offer. Today, Sony announced a new Cyber-shot digital still camera (model DSC-P20) at a bit more reasonable price. While it may not have all the bells and whistles of the Fuji unit, the price point is just about right for those of us who don't figure a camera is worth a month's rent. The DSC-P20 still manages to provide MPEG motion video, ClipMotion animation and compatibility with an optional InfoLithium battery. Without the fancy battery, the whole rig will only set you back $250. The camera gives you a 1.3 megapixel CCD (Charged Coupled Device), a 3x precision digital zoom and a playback mode that lets you enlarge and trim images in-camera, then save them as new photos. It also captures MPEG EX video clips up to the capacity of the Memory Stick media in use. During playback, you can move forward or backward in the clip and edit portions of the video, which you can save at 160x112 or 320x240. The camera comes with a 4MB Memory Stick card, USB cable, and has a 1.5" LCD for viewing pictures or video.