14 DAY TRIAL // BenQ announced a new digital 8-megapixel (really) camera for the European Market: P 860. This is their second camera in the P(erformance)-series, coming after the BenQ P50. OK! Here's a myth that needs some busting: megapixels are a landmark when it comes to shopping a "good" digital camera. This is actually a misleading marketing trick often used on this market. You may be wrong thinking that a 10-megapixel camera can take better pictures than an 8-megapixel one. Take a 10-megapixel shirt-pocket camera and a 6-megapixel SLR camera for example. The latter is actually better, simply because the sensor size is far more important. Of course, camera makers know what's on a shopper's mind and exploit this aspect.
Actually, when announcing this, BenQ is not playing that "megapixel trick" (it may be, but I rather think they are not). Here come the specs. It features an 8-0 megapixel CCD image sensor (good), 6 x optical zoom and 5 x digital zoom, a 2.5 inch TFT LCD monitor with 153.500 pixels, 18 BM integrated memory and support for SD cards.
The P 860 offers built-in technologies to minimize image blur and also "Shake-free" optical image stabilization. The device has high light sensitivity (up to ISO 1000, no ISO 1600 yet) to facilitate shooting at faster shutter speeds, as well as in low light conditions. The thing offers 4 shooting modes (P/Av/Tv/M) so you can adjust the right aperture and shutter settings (it includes other 12 scene shooting modes). It can also shoot videos of 30fps at a 640 x 480 resolution.
The P860 isn't (yet) "available anywhere". It will be available in Italy, Spain, Russia and China by the end of March. Also, no word on the price yet.