BenQ touts thin DSC

Thin is in today. While Apple orchestrated its dog and pony show for its Twiggy ultraportable the MacBook Air, on the other side of the pond electronics maker BenQ was beating the drum about what it's calling the world's thinnest eight megapixel digital still camera, the DSC-X800. The camera has eye-catching good looks. It has a breast plate on front of the unit that gives it a stainless steel look, a look accented by a body that comes in two colors--glossy black or red. Although it doesn't have an optical viewfinder--slimsters like this rarely do--it does have a large three-inch LCD. The 3x zoom in the unit is standard size fare for this kind of camera, but in wide mode it can shoot subjects as close as five centimeters, or about two inches. In an offbeat move, BenQ designed the DSC to use microSD cards instead of more standard fare. That could prove to be irritating to consumers who have computers with built-in card readers. A firm date and pricing for the camera is still up in the air, but BenQ expects the product to reach the market sometime this quarter.