Sony's DSC-M1 digital camera

We think the design is sorta fresh just on its own, but what Sony really hopes will impress us about the Cyber-shot DSC-M1, their new 5.1 megapixel digital camera, is that it can also pull double duty as a mini-camcorder. We'd be all dismissive and everything, since tons of digital cameras can record video clips, but it's not exactly just a marketing gimmick. Yeah, its 2.5-inch LCD can swivel around and rotate 270 degrees, but the DSC-M1 also has this unusual hybrid recording mode where it can automatically record five seconds of video before and three seconds after every time you take a pic, the idea being that this way you won't accidentally miss any of those future precious memories. They use an MPEG-4 video codec to keep the file size down, but either way you're still going to need a mighty Memory Stick to store all those extra clips you'll be recording. Anyway, the DSC-M1 should be out in December with a retail price of $600. (Click to see some more pics.)

[Thanks, Naresh]