Only one thing comes to mind after a glance at the new Sony Bloggie Touch: is it a smartphone? As the follow-up to last year’s MHS-PM5, the $200 Sony Bloggie Touch MHS-TS20 shares the same minimalist design as an iPhone and a Google Nexus. The front of the handheld camcorder is dominated by a 3″ 230k-dot capacitive touch screen. So you do most of the navigations through swiping. There’s only one button below the LCD. The power button is on one side while the HDMI connector is on the other. The flip-out USB connector is revealed by pressing on the release latch. Unfortunately, there’s neither removable battery nor expandable memory slot.
You will find a nice big lens on top of its curvy back brushed metal casing. And that’s clearly distinguishes the Bloggie Touch from the competitors. The f2.8 lens has much needed auto-focus and macro mode. It can also record panoramic video with ease at twice the resolution compared to previous Bloggie. Sony cites the Bloggie Touch’s low-light performance to be equally impressive thanks to the Exmor CMOS sensor. The on-board accelerometer allows video to be shot in both landscape and portrait mode – a feature first found on iPhone. We are still waiting for a mini-camcorder that does 1080p60 for those fast motion recording, but 1080p30 and 720p60 will have to suffice for now until Sony decides to quadruple the built-in 8GB memory (4GB also available) to 32GB. Still, we would suggest you check out the formidable Xacti VPC-PD2 (hint: optical zoom, built-in flash) first before making a decision.Permanent Link
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