Sanyo Xacti VPC-C40

4.00 Megapixels	5.80x zoom	1/2.7" size sensor

Available from January 2006, the Sanyo Xacti VPC-C40 has a very camcorder-like form factor, but underneath the skin lurks a higher-resolution four megapixel CCD imager that gives it very much of a still-camera "heart". Priced at $399, the Sanyo VPC-C40 couples this with a 5.8x optical zoom lens (with a not-wildly-bright f/3.5 - f/3.7 maximum aperture across the zoom range). There's no optical viewfinder - an increasingly rare option these days - and at 1.8" and 85,000 pixels the LCD display is smaller and lower-resolution than many modern digicams as well.

Other features include USB 2.0 High Speed connectivity - a boon that will help get your images onto your computer much more quickly than the USB 1.1 or 2.0 Full Speed connections still used on some cameras - as well as NTSC / PAL switchable video output, DB-L20 proprietary Lithium Ion battery, and Secure Digital card storage. Many of Sanyo's still cameras excel (at least, by still camera standards) on the movie side of things and as you might expect given the styling, the Sanyo C40 doesn't disappoint here either. Movies can be captured at up to VGA resolution with a rate of 30 frames per second in MPEG-4 format, and a stereo microphone separates the Xacti C40 from almost all of its rivals in the still camera market.