Where the Exilim is a nice digital camera, the T1 is a startlingly powerful one, with 5-megapixel resolution, a periscope-style 3X optical zoom lens hidden in its case and a magnificent 2.5-in. LCD screen. It's especially good on the fly and has pre-set programs for situations (beach, snow, twilight, etc.). It wins originality points for Magnifying Glass mode, a way to take insanely high resolution shots of scraps of paper, coins or other finely detailed items. Also, instead of shooting jerky motion JPEGs, the T1's video mode produces camcorder-quality MPEG-VX video.

However, when I switched it to the highest quality video mode ("Fine 640"), I backed into the T1's biggest problem. The camera told me I needed a larger capacity Memory Stick to even begin shooting, but it won't use older Memory Sticks (no matter how much you paid for them, early adopters!), only Memory Stick "Pro Duo." It ships with a measly 32MB card, which barely holds 12 five-megapixel shots and just 1 minute 27 seconds of "Standard 640" video. It boils down to this: after paying $550 for the hottest camera around, you have to spend another $300 on the 512MB Pro Duo card that will justify your buy.

Yes, I did say "hottest camera around." Notwithstanding a few headscratchers (like burying the red-eye reducing double-flash setting deep in the setup menu rather than next to the other flash settings), Sony's T1 proves that the company isn't ready to yield the digital camera market to the traditional photography players like Canon and Nikon. Now, if you can just find a polite way to ask Aunt Edna for a gift receipt...