Sony's new DSC-TX1 is driven almost completely by a touch-based interface. This being the case the rear of the camera is dominated by a large 3-inch LCD, though there are a few buttons (such as shutter control and zoom) strewn across the camera's top body.
In terms of features the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-TX1 has an ace up its sleeve in the form of its ‘Sweep Panorama' mode. Using this mode the camera shoots in bursts as you move it from side-to-side or even from up-to-down and then automatically stitches the images together to create a panorama. Though our first and second attempts returned far from ideal results, when we slowed down our hand movement, the Cyber-shot returned panoramas that were quite impressive.
As the TX1 features a CMOS sensor traditionally found on expensive SLR cameras we were expecting the Sony to perform well. Unfortunately, in reality it proved quite an uneven performer. While some snaps were captured with excellent colour accuracy others seemed artificially bright, making the subject look fluorescent. Sharpness was also a miss in certain images. ISO performance was slightly better; noise only crept into shots at the 1600 and 3200 settings.