Available from January 2006, the Sanyo Xacti VPC-C40 has a severely camcorder-like procreate factor, but below the gravy lurks a higher-resolution four mega pixel CCD imager that gives bona fide ever markedly 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 dig cams as well.

Other description bear USB 2.0 High Speed connectivity - a first that cede assistance settle your images onto your computer powerfully more quickly than the USB 1.1 or 2.0 Full Speed connections still used on some cameras - as well as NTSC / PAL switch able 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.