Sony Cyber-shot W510, W530, W560, T110, H70 and J10 shake a stick at CES

As the sun rises over Las Vegas, Sony has unveiled more compact cameras than we can shake a stick at. Seriously, we've shaken sticks at so many cameras we can barely lift our arms.

Richard Trenholm

Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.

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Richard Trenholm

Jan. 6, 2011 10:56 a.m. PT

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The sun has risen over the Nevada desert for the first day of CES 2011 in Las Vegas, and every technology company in the world has saluted the dawn by announcing every gadget ever. Sony in particular has decided that what the world needs is a more 3DTVs, Blu-ray players, mini-camcorders and 3D compact cameras than you can shake a stick at.

Just as we fall to our knees, exhausted and weeping from an entire day of uninterrupted stick-shaking at an apparently endless tsunami of technology, along come a hatful of entry-level Sony compact cameras. Stirring feebly, we wave our stick in the general direction of the Cyber-shot W510, W530, W560, T110, H70 and J10, before collapsing into the dust, gadgeted out.

The dirty half-dozen all pack 16-megapixels into their compact frames. They each shoot 720p high-definition video and come in a variety of fetching colours. The W series are pretty vanilla, but judging by the American pricing are set to be extremely easy on the wallet when they cross the pond.

The T110 sports a 3-inch touchscreen and a sliding front cover. The H70 includes a 25mm wide-angle lens and 10x optical zoom, putting it into competition with the Fujifilm FinePix T200 and T300 also announced at CES.

Our pick of the budget bunch is the J10, pictured above. It holds a whopping 4GB of storage built-in, which is a fair few photos. It also takes SD and SDHC cards, as do the other new models.

On top of that, it boasts a dinky flip-out USB arm. Popularised by the Flip Video mini-camcorder range, such Flip fripperies let you plug your camera straight into your PC. That means no cable to lose, which is usually the first thing we do as soon as we open a new camera. After dropping it on the hardest surface available, that is, which is the first thing you have to do as soon as you pick up something expensive and uninsured. It's the law.

The entry-level snappers will arrive in the US in February and March. UK prices and release dates are yet to be confirmed. Come back tomorrow for more CES goodness, when our stick-shaking arms will be fully recharged. In the meantime, enjoy our hands-on coverage from our men in Sin City, Luke "What Happens In Vegas" Westaway and Ian "Stays in Vegas" Morris.