Sony's camcorders are known for stylish, often innovative design. And ask anyone who's owned their cams, they'll be all too happy to point out the sturdy construction that has come to be expected from Sony. That's the usual from Sony, and then there's the TG1. Its impossibly small body (seriously, this thing is slightly taller than a pack of playing cards) is made entirely out of titanium. The titanium is then coated with some sort of comic-book-worthy, scratch resistant, insane concoction out of Sony's labs.



Partly killing the excitement, the TG1's full HD resolution is achieved by a sensor that measures just 1/5 inches, but it's an Exmor sensor using Bionz image processing (both inherited from Sony's DSLRs and pro camcorders). For once, the fancy names mean something, as the same technologies have already given the SR12 a serious boost in noise reduction. It packs all the features found in Sony's top consumer camcorders and it looks like just how an electric shaver would if it were to cost $900 - supremely simple and oddly attractive. That's a very expensive price tag for video that won't disappoint consumers, but isn't close to the image quality of the top performers in the consumer realm.



The 1/5-inch, 2.3 megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor is Sony's low-end imager for 2008. It outputs interlaced video at 1920 x 1080 resolution. Sony's proprietary Memory Stick cards hold the footage, compressed at 16Mbps using the latest generation AVCHD algorithms. While still not equivalent to HDV, the good image processor keeps compression artifacts under control.



Expect overall resolution to be poor, certainly not up to the standards of true 1920 x 1080. Bionz image processing keeps daylight images clean, but in low-light the TG1's shows its true nature: that of a low-end HD camcorder. Sony's claims improved dynamic range with a feature called 'Dynamic Range Optimizer'. The optional xvYCC color space should provide 1.8 times the 'normal' color gamut (sRGB), and while it is a step in the right direction, most users do not own the xvYCC-compatible television sets that are required for viewing.



The 10x zoom lens has a 43 - 430mm 35mm equivalent field of view, one of the better wide-angle capabilities on Sony's consumer camcorders. The lens holds a really good aperture range of f1.8 to f.2.3. The optical image stabilization, a must on such a small camera, works extremely well. The 2.7-inch and 211,000 pixels LCD would have been a disappointment on a larger model, but it fits the pocket-sized TG1. Not surprisingly, no room for a viewfinder was found on the miniature body.



Auto-exposure and auto white balance are quick to respond, and make smooth transitions. Auto focus is good even in low-light, but manual focus is almost impossible, thanks to Sony's messy touch-screen interface. White balance and exposure shift round up the manual controls.



Face detection can locate up to eight faces in any given shot, and works its magic on skin tones through small changes in focus, exposure, and color. Face detail is enhanced, receiving extra encoding space in the codec.



One of the TG1's strong marketing points will be its slow motion recording ability. But this isn't style with no substance – video streaming sites have proven that humans are fascinated with the hidden details that slow motion video unveils. The camcorder is able to shoot at 240 frames per second for three seconds, resulting in a full 12 seconds of natural looking slow motion.



The camera benefits from two interesting playback modes. 'Face Index' attempts to index footage according to the faces that it identifies. 'Film Roll' creates previews of a video file, displaying the content in a time-line at user-selected intervals.



Photos can be captured to the same Memory Stick cards that video is saved on. The maximum resolution is 4 megapixels. Photos and videos can be simultaneously recorded.



The TG1 has a 5.1 channel Dolby Digital on-board microphone, with a zoom function that targets distant sounds when fully zoomed in visually, and picks up increasing levels of surround sound as you zoom out. No microphone or headphone jacks are provided.



Available ports on this camcorder are HDMI, USB 2.0, S-video output, AV out and component out.