Sony has announced an update to its TX line of compact cameras: the Sony Cyber-shot TX200V.

The Cyber-shot TX200V replaces the TX100V, and is only 16mm thick, but still offers to be waterproof down to 5m and freezeproof down to -10 c, perfect for taking on the slopes with you. 

The TX200V features a reinforced glass design, making it slick and minimalistic from the front; around the back you'll find a 3-inch 921-k dot LCD touchscreen display.

A Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens gives you a 5x zoom (26-130mm in 35mm terms depending on the photo aspect), all housed within the body. Driving the camera is Sony's Bionz processor and an 18-megapixel Exmor R CMOS sensor, of the 1/2.3 variety. Optical SteadyShot is included to reduce the effects of handshake. 

A host of technologies are offered, including fast autofocusing, with 0.13 second daylight AF boasted, along with creative shooting modes, to achieve that blurred background or other picture effects, such as toy camera and miniature.

The TX200V also offers Full HD 1080/60p video capture, along with Sweep Panorama (including the 3D variety) and the likes of face detection and face recognition.

New to Sony's Cyber-shot cameras is an "Extra High Sensitivity" technology in the Bionz processor, which looks to combat the problem of noisy images being produced by small sensors crammed with pixels in low light (which might describe the TX200V's sensor).

It's not a new claim, as just about everyone else claims to have cracked the problem of noisy low light images. Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so we'd wait to see whether these claims can be substantiated before getting too excited. 

The Sony Cyber-shot TX200V is expected to be available towards the end of March and is available for pre-order at $499.99 on store.sony.com. No word in UK release as yet.