The Sony Cyber-shot W290 contains a whole lot of neat technologies in a sleek, brushed-aluminum package. Designed around a 12.1 megapixel (1/2.3") Super HAD CCD sensor, the W290 features a Carl Zeiss-designed 5x (5 - 25mm) power zoom that covers the equivalent field-of-view of a wide 28mm to semi-long 140mm lens. Despite its compact size, the W290 can capture up to 100 continuous exposures at speeds up to 1.8fps thanks in part to its Sony BIONZ image processor. Along with vibrant still images, the W290 can also capture vivid 720p HD video clips.

For easy composing, viewing and editing your still and video imagery, the Cyber-shot W290 features a 3" 230,400-dot Photo Clear LCD. For capturing stills, the W290 offers an immense selection of exposure and scene mode selections including an Easy Shooting Mode for those wishing to keep things nice and simple. There are also 10 in-camera retouching tools available for enhancing your pictures post-capture.

Still images can be captured at 8 levels of JPEG compression and video with sound (mono) at 3 levels of image compression to best fit your needs. To further enhance your pictures, the Cyber-shot W290 has a PHOTOMUSIC feature, which combines music and a selection of visual effects into your still image slideshows and video clips.

For admiring your pictures on a grander scale, you can output images at sizes up to and exceeding 13x19", or view them in high-definition on a Sony BRAVIA or similarly compatible HDTV using the optional VMC-MHC2 HD output adapter cable.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W290 is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which is good for about 300 images (or 150 minutes of video), and along with 11MB of internal memory records images onto Memory Stick PRO and Memory Stick DUO PRO (up to 16GB) media.

• 12.1 Megapixel Super HAD CCD Imaging Sensor

Capture brilliantly sharp images for print sizes of up Super A3 and still have ample wiggle room to crop into your image files when you need to get in tighter than the zoom lens allowed at the time of image capture

• Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 5x Power Zoom

The Cyber-shot W290 features a 28 - 140 mm equivalent Carl Zeiss-designed power zoom lens. Containing 9 elements in 7 groups (with 3 aspheric surfaces), the W290 should prove to be ideal for capturing everything from landscapes to tight portraits

• 3" Clear View LCD Display

A bright 3" 230,400-dot LCD display enables you to easily compose, review, and edit your pictures as you take them

• BIONZ Image Processor

A Sony BIONZ image processor guarantees life-like color, improved shadow and highlight detail, along with quick start-up times and quick-to-respond camera performance

• Intelligent Auto Mode (iAuto)

iAuto takes all of the guesswork out of selecting the best shooting mode by analyzing the scene and making all appropriate adjustments required to capture an optimized image, and it performs this little trick in less than 1/30th of a second. To accomplish this feat iAuto takes advantage of other W290 features including Scene Recognition, Face Recognition, and Optical SteadyShot

• Shoot Stills and Video

The Cyber-shot W290 captures JPEG still images at 8 levels of compression and video clips with sound (mono) at 3 levels of MPEG4 compression. In video mode you can capture up to 29 minutes (or up to 2GB) of 720p-format video

• Automatic or Manual Scene Selections

For choosing the best exposure parameters for each scene you capture the W290 offers you a choice of manually choosing from a selection of 10 Scene modes or set the camera to Intelligent Scene mode (iSCN) and the camera will automatically select the best out of 8 auto Scene modes

• Face Detection and Smile Shutter

To better guarantee optimized portraits the Cyber-shot W290 can detect up to 8 faces in a scene and program the camera to produce exposures optimized for clean skin tones and contrast levels. The camera's Smile Shutter feature prevents the camera from taking an exposure until it detects a smile on the primary face(s). There's also an Anti-Blink function that detects eyes that seem to blink every time you press the shutter button

• Sharp Images Even Under Low-light Conditions

The W290 combines dual image stabilization technologies to better ensure sharp images. When set to SteadyShot mode, the camera quickly captures 2 images and combines the best elements of each into a single optimized photograph. When shooting under low-light conditions, the camera's High Sensitivity Mode boosts the sensor's ISO sensitivity levels up to 3200 to further guarantee sharp images regardless of lighting conditions

• In-Camera Retouching and Re-Sizing Tools

The Cyber-shot W290 features a selection of retouching tools that allow you to perform a variety of post-capture image improvements including Trimming, Red-eye reduction, Soft-focus, Fisheye, Partial Color, Cross Filter, Radial blur, Retro, Happy Face, and Unsharp Masking

• Easy Image Management

EIM enables you edit images and sort them by a variety of categories in order to make it easy to retrieve them at a later date with a minimum of fuss and bother

• Stamina Battery

The camera's lithium-ion battery allows for up to 150 minutes of extended video capture or over 300 exposures-per-charge