Sony Updates Cyber-shot W-Series Compact Point & Shoot Digital Camera Line

Sony has announced during CES 2010 a refresh to their popular Cyber-shot W-Series line of compact point and shoot digital cameras. The new models are officially named DSC-W310, DSC-W330, DSC-W350, and DSC-W370. Every model features a large LCD and 14 megapixels, except for the W310 which will have 12. One of my first point and shoot cameras was a W-Series, and its good to see Sony has put some great features in each camera, which should satisfy most amateur photographers. Let’s take a look:

The 14 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W370 will be available in March for about $230. It has a large 3″ LCD,  and 7x optical zoom with optical steady shot. It is also one of the first W-Series cameras to get sweep panorama mode to compliment smile shutter and iAuto, which detects eight scenes and optimizes camera settings accordingly. We also love that they brought back 720p HD video recording back to the higher end W-Series, and think that the Mini-HDMI output will be good for those who want to share their pictures on a HDTV. Color options will be silver, red, and a rather rare color for a Sony camera – green.

The little brother to the W370 is the DSC-W350, which is set to debut this month for $200 and is very similar to the W370 except it has a smaller LCD at 2.7″ and a 4x Carl Zeiss optical zoom lens. Like the W370, it has sweep panorama, 720p HD video recording, smile shutter and optical steady shot. We also noticed the colors for the W350 are also different than its big brother as it is available in silver, black, pink and blue. This is a very strong contender for the best $200 point and shoot camera segment that I’ve noticed consumer electronic manufacturers are trying to achieve in 2010 – it is the pricing sweet spot many analysts consider a coveted position in this market.

Here is some information on two other updates to the Sony W-Series Cyber-shot family of digital cameras:

Here is the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W330, which will be available in February for about $170 and has a 14 megapixel sensor,  3” LCD and 4x Carl Zeiss wide angle 26mm optical zoom lens. It also has iAuto, Smile Shutter, and Steady Shot image stabilization. The W330 will be available in silver, black, red and blue.

And lastly we have the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W310, available a month later in March for about $150. The W310 will be 12 megapixels and have a 2.7” LCD and 4x wide angle 28mm optical zoom lens. Like the W330, it also has iAuto, Smile Shutter, and Steady Shot image stabilization. Look for the W310 in silver, black and pink.