BenQ T850 camera sports iPhone-esque controls

Tap, circle, swipe your pictures

29 May 2008 14:51 GMT / By Stuart Miles

BenQ has launched what it says is the World’s slimmest 8 megapixel camera, hoping that the current trend of thin televisions is going to make it over to the digital camera world.

The new camera, which is just 14mm thick will be called the BenQ T850 and offer 8 megapixel resoluion, a 3x optical zoom and ISO up to 1600.

Around the back of the model there is a 3-inch TFT touchscreen LCD that you can control via three simple finger movements: tap, circle, swipe according to BenQ.

Options when taking pictures include “Smile Catch”, Auto Face Tracking, Z Lighting, advanced photo art, and a feature called scribble and scrawl.

The touchscreen element will be used to zoom and focus. To reset the focal point, BenQ say users will have to simply tap the preferred spot on the screen, and the T850 will re-centre and automatically refocus the image. To enlarge a specific portion of the image, simply draw a circle around the location with your fingertip. The T850 will instantly perform a 12x zoom to the circled area. Playback is performed by “swiping”.

The T850 will be available worldwide mid-May in China and select countries in Asia and Europe.