New Casio Exilim EX-Z9

Fans of new camera announcements, we have a new camera announcement for you! Casio is introducing a new model in their EX-Z series, the EX-Z9. Details at the Adorama News Desk. The Z9 costs $160 and has an 8mp 1/2.5" sensor, and a 3x optical zoom lens.

Other features include a 2.6" LCD, best shot and YouTube modes, and face detection. We were extremely disappointed sneaze detection and dog barking detection were not included :-(

The anti-shake mode mentioned is "digital" - they call it "DSP" which of course is Digital Signal Processing, but sounds advanced to the average consumer. Oh marketing peoples, will you ever learn? :)

This actually looks like a nice cutesy little camera at its price point. And it is available in four colors, orange, pink, black and silver. If you have four kids or four grand-kids, you can get them one color each, that way they can easily sort out which one owns which. And you will only pay $640 ;-)

And speaking of paying, we haven't found it listed for pre-ordering yet.

The Casio USA press release and detailed specifications can be found at the Imaging Insider. More on the Casio EX-Z9 at DC Views, dpnow, and Electronista, the consumer electronics blog as the name suggests.

The EX-Z9 has been added to our New Digital Cameras in 2008 List, which currently has 100+ new cameras, most of them announced in January 2008 around and in-between CES and PMA. Interestingly, 9 of them are DSLRs, 12 are big zooms (zoom ratio of 10x or more), 17 of them start at 28mm or wider, but sadly only four non-dSLRs have RAW. How did we manage to advance so much in digital photography and yet fall so back behind at the same time?