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Sony Cyber-shot HX9V coming soon!

B+

We've given the HX9V a pre-release grade of B+.

This product is ranked

24th	of 37	in Sony
28th	of 42	in 15+ Megapixels
16th	of 35	in Travel Zoom

Editors' Comments

The HX9V is Sony's top-of-the-line compact zoom for 2011, featuring a little bit "more" of all the features found on the mid-range HX7V -- almost too many to list. The 24mm, 16x zoom Sony G lens looks quite versatile, and the high-res sweep panorama feature has the potential to be awesome. It's capable of taking enormous 42.9 megapixel panoramas, which should preserve a lot more detail than the relatively small images that lesser sweep-panorama features found on other Sony cameras churn out. The press materials also refer to "dSLR-class high-speed autofocus," which could be some sort of phase-detection autofocus -- impressive and uncommon in a compact camera, but without an internal mirror, we're not really sure how this would actually work.

This camera is built around the same EXMOR R backlit CMOS sensor that's used in many 2011 Cyber-shots, which basically means that it'll be fast and should perform well in low light. Sony was ahead of the curve in using a CMOS sensor in their compact zooms: They had one in last year's HX5V. Now CMOS-based compact zooms are the trend, and Sony's experience with the genre could put them at an advantage. Hopefully all the extras don't add up to a bloated price, but it looks a solid contender against Panasonic and Nikon's huge-zoom CMOS-based travel cameras set for release this year.