Today, Sony announced its new breakthrough in cellphone cameras with a camera that’s as powerful, if not more, than my handheld Canon. It’s managed to shrink the size of the sensor down so much, that a 12.25-megapixel, 28mm equivalent CMOS camera can now fit within a cellphone.

On top of image quality and detail comparable to most point and shoot cameras, this newly developed lens will also be capable of shooting 1080p video at up to 27 frames per second. With video quality that superb, you’ll certainly need to upgrade that beat up Sandisk SD card of yours if you want to hold any video of decent length.

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We’re pretty sure that we’re really approaching an announcement now. This morning we found pictures of 2 unannounced phones from SonyEricsson being leaked on Chinese forums. The black phone shown above should be the rumored Sofia (code name, K850i) with a 5 megapixels CCD camera module and xenon flash. (CCD, as found on the Thai I-mobile 902, not CMOS). Pay attention to the newly introduced dial/hang up buttons right next to the 2 softkeys below the screen, the d-pad that merges with the number pad at the middle to fit a pretty large QVGA screen. Also check out the camera illumination icons similar to the K810i, that will light up in camera mode to act as camera option shortcuts. The photos are dated back 3 months ago, so it is possible that SE might make final touchups to the design, as experienced by the K750i and W800i in the past. The Sofia should be a WCDMA device due early Q2 this year, price will be significantly lower than Nokia N95.

Jump to check out the other leaked model: Maria M610i WCDMA messaging device with 3.2 megapixels camera.

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The Olympus SP-550UZ, which we posted about in January, is a camera for the shy. You don’t have to be all that near to people to take some intimate looking photos. The SP-550UZ has a 18x optical zoom, a ridiculous amount. To put it in perspective, many mid-range point and shoots have a optical zoom of 3x. At the high level of zoom the camera still maintains 7.1 MP quality.

The ISO level is able to reach 5000, though a considerable amount of quality is loss, bringing the megapixel count down to three. Not only can the camera handle RAW and JPEG files, but can take video at 30fps. Enough zooming quality to pick up Paris Hilton’s next foul up. (more…)

Sony cameras have had quite strong reactions from techies everywhere. As with many other Sony products, the proprietary MemoryStick is Sony’s media card of choice. Sony has released a new line of low to mid range cameras that range in price of $150-$200, a 7 megapixel sensor is quite a nice feature for that price. Coupled with the large LCDs that Sony puts on the back of their cameras (2 inch), these cameras seem pretty tempting. Another little fact about these cameras is that they take AA batteries instead of a proprietary battery as many manufacturers are switching to now. So the full line of cameras includes the S650, S700, W35, and W55. The W series takes the proprietary lithium ion batteries. Also, for you kids (or for you), the cameras come in multi-colored body styles. So whether you are looking for a new camera or not, newer and cheaper cameras are always nice. — Nik Gomez

Sony: Four new Cyber-shot digicams [via CrunchGear]

So this product by Samsung is being released alongside of every 99999 other products being released at CES. At first glance it looks like the next iteration of the new digital cameras aimed at kids that are sleek and look cool. Not so. Just take a look here:

• 7.2 Megapixel resolution
• 3x optical zoom lens
• 3.0-inch LCD display
• 9-button user interface
• MP3 and Video
• MPEG-4 720×480 pixels at 15fps
• Auto focus
• Intelligent face recognition

So a 3.0 inch LCD sounds pretty nice, huh? Well, so does that MP3 play back feature that they seem to be downplaying. This nice little gadget records videos, takes 7.2 megapixel pictures, and plays your new songs that you downloaded last night. Also included here is the piece of technology called Intelligent Face Recognition. It takes a look at the picture  you are about to take, finds faces, and auto-adjusts focus and other aspects to make the faces look as good as possible. While no tests have been done by third parties on image quality, the i70 sounds pretty nice. — Nik Gomez

Samsung i70 Identity Crisis: PMP or Digital Camera? [via AnythingButiPod]