Sony Corporation debuts compact A5100 with in-built Wi-Fi, fast Hybrid AF, and more

[Transcendence]

While most consumers, today love smartphones and want a quality camera in their iPhone, Android, or Windows Phone device, a number of photographers and the photographic at heart look to digital cameras to provide what many believe smartphone cameras still lack. Sony, known for the camcorder and its many digital cameras ever since, has now unveiled the most compact digital camera with impressive photography specs that may make you sit down your iPhone 5s or Galaxy S5 for a while.

 

The A5100 has a few features that command respect with both photographers and ordinary consumers. First, it’s built-in Wi-Fi, allowing iOS and Android users to share and upload their photos via Wi-Fi to social networks. In-built Wi-Fi is an excellent feature that doesn’t force photographers to choose between a quality digital camera and the Internet web-sharing experience they’ve come to love about smartphones. Sony prevents photographers from having to choose between these two devices, giving them a little of both worlds.

 

Next, the A5100 has a Fast Hybrid Autofocus that allows you to focus on an image in just 0.07 seconds. To put this into perspective, it’s faster at focusing on your photos than even the Samsung Galaxy S5. At Samsung’s Spring announcement, the company said that its Hybrid Autofocus feature could focus in 0.1 seconds. The Sony A5100 focuses on your photos 0.03 seconds faster than the Galaxy S5. You will likely not notice the difference, but it is an impressive feature nonetheless.

 

If you’re wondering about the camera megapixel resolution, you don’t have to. Similar to the A6000, the new Sony A5100 features the same 24.3MP camera sensor you’ve experienced in the A6000. In other words, you still get quality photos from Sony’s digital camera as you have in the past. The A6000 and the A5100’s 24.3MP cameras explain why Sony’s yet to emerge with anything above the 20.7MP camera found on the Xperia Z2 (that has also been leaked as remaining in the Xperia Z3 experience).

 

At some point, however, we see Sony “upping†its Xperia Z rear camera, so much so that some photographers may decide to select an Xperia Z device for their go-to photography source in the future. At the moment, none of Sony’s other Android competitors (LG, HTC, Samsung) have chosen 24MP cameras for their smartphones, but Samsung’s gunning for Sony – the Korean giant’s already placed a 20MP camera into the Galaxy K (formerly the Galaxy S4 Zoom), and next year could see the arrival of a 24MP camera or higher megapixel count into the Samsung experience.

 

One new feature that may surprise you about the A5100 is its dual video recording. We’ve seen dual camera shot on a number of Android phones (particularly within the Samsung experience), but the A5100 allows you to also have a dual video recording experience that lets you record two files at once and upload them to your social networks. Keep in mind, however, that one will record Full HD video while the other won’t (a lower resolution). Still, you can upload these to the A5100 and place them in the camera’s SD card (purchased separately).

 

Last but not least, Sony has 10 available camera apps that can be downloaded onto the A5100 to help improve your photography experience. Sony’s cameras have always been spectacular, and we can’t see the A5100 being any different.

 

The Sony A5100 will cost $700 with a zoom lens, but for those who choose to go without the zoom lens, you’ll only pay $550. You can expect the Sony A5100 to appear in both black and white colors and be available next month.