Culture

Photos: Sony hauls cameras, electronics to Vegas

Consumer electronics giant holds a double-header in Las Vegas to show not just its latest camera technology, but also Blu-ray players, home theater systems, and more.

Erica Ogg

See full bio

Erica Ogg

March 3, 2009 9:40 a.m. PT

1 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Line show attendees

Sony crammed two events together in Las Vegas this week: its annual product showcase and its press event before the start of the annual PMA International photo/imaging expo. Here members of the press and camera reviewers test out some of Sony's latest offerings in the ballroom of the Paris Las Vegas hotel.

2 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Sony underwater camera housings

For the scuba-and-snorkel set, Sony announced several new underwater housings for its digital Cyber-shot compact cameras. These housings generally cost about $230 for models that will protect cameras to depths of 132 feet and $75 for the pool-oriented models that work only to a depth of 5 feet.

3 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Sony's SPK-WB underwater camera housing

The $200 SPK-WB housing for Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-W290 camera works at depths of up to 10 feet. It includes a silicone jacket case that you can leave around the camera to protect it from scratches and bangs even when it's not in the underwater housing.

4 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Sony boombox

The ZS-E5 boombox unveiled here is a bit of an oddity. Instead of slapping on an iPod dock like most of today's portable speaker systems, this little toadstool-esque music box keeps things simple with a CD player, aux input, and AM/FM radio. The CD player works with CD-R/RW discs and includes an LED track number display and large buttons. It will be available in April for $40.

5 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Sony Bravia W-Series

Usually the Sony Line Show is brimming with brand-new Bravias. This year, however, we saw most of Sony's new TVs at CES. The exception is the W-series of flat panels. The electronics giant showed off the Yahoo Widgets-packing 52-inch KDL-52W5100, 46-inch KDL-46W5100, and 40-inch KDL-40W5100. Neither pricing nor availability beyond "spring" was released.

6 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Blu-ray home theater system

The company announced two new home-theater-in-a-box systems with built-in Blu-ray players, the BDV-E300 ($600) and BDV-E500W ($800). When they ship in June, these new models will replace the more expensive, current lineup, consisting of the BDV-IS1000 ($1,000) and BDV-IT1000ES ($2,000).

Both of the new systems incorporate full-featured profile 2.0 Blu-ray players that can send the latest BD soundtracks, including Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio, out over the included speakers (or out an HDMI port via LPCM or bitstream).

7 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

S360 Blu-ray player

Of the two new Blu-ray players announced at the Sony event, this is the lower-end one. The S360 was short on details, except that it will come out this summer for $299.

8 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Sony OLED

It's nothing new--for Sony at least--but the company reliably trotted out its OLED TV technology at the show. Sony is still the only TV maker with an OLED product on the market today.

9 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

OLED side

This is the side view of the impossibly thin OLED prototype from Sony. Without the bezel, you can see that the 0.3 mm prototype display is thinner than a playing card.

10 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

GPS for camera

It's not new, but Sony trotted out its GPS device for cameras that takes note of the place, time, and date of your photos. The GPS-CS3KA has a 15-hour battery and sells for $150.

11 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

S560 Blu-ray

Sony jumps on the wireless standalone Blu-ray player bandwagon by cutting the Ethernet cable on its S560 model. It will be available for $350 starting this summer.

12 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Lenses

At PMA, Sony is showing these six prototype lenses, including a supertelephoto and 28-75mm f2.8 zoom, that are geared for full-frame cameras such as Sony's Alpha A900. The others, for the mainstream SLRs with smaller sensors, are a 50mm f1.8, 30mm f2.8 macro, 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 zoom, and 55-200m f4-5.6 zoom.

13 of 14 Stephen Shankland/CNET

Shigeki Ishizuka

Shigeki Ishizuka, president of Sony's digital imaging business group, touted Sony's in-house expertise in camera lenses, image sensors, and image processors. The company started building electronic image sensors in 1978 and, in January, manufactured its 1 billionth, he said.

14 of 14 Sony

DSC-HX1 camera

Sony's new Cyber-shot DSC-HX1 will incorporate several technologies from its Alpha digital SLR products, including a 1/2.4-inch 10-megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor (for 9-megapixel images) and a 20X f2.8-5.2 28-560mm-equivalent optically stabilized lens based on the company's higher-quality G series lenses.

In theory, the combination should deliver better photo quality than is generally seen in this class. Price is set at $499 when it ships in mid-April.