BenQ's new shooters slap leather

It isn't easy selling digital cameras outside the  Canon-Nikon-Sony sphere of influence, but you have to give the creative guys at BenQ credit. They always seem to find a little something to distinguish their point-and-pop bytecams from their competition--even if that something is only cosmetic. In January it was the slimmest eight megapixel camera on the market. Now it's leather accents. The Taiwan-based company announced today three new DSCs--two of them with hand grips covered with leather "for a warm touch to your palm." Other than their leather trappings the 8MP DC C850 (top right photo) and 7MP DC C750 (middle photo) have features that have become common in this category--image stabilization, high light sensitivity (ISO 1600), face recognition and smile recognition. Both cameras have 3x optical zooms, but the C850 has a slightly larger LCD than the C750, 2.7 inches compared to 2.5 inches. In addition to the typical video sizes found in these kinds of snappers, both BenQ models have a wide mode for 720 x 400 video. The third camera paraded by BenQ today, the DC E800 (bottom right photo), doesn't have the leather cachet, but it does have a slightly larger digital zoom 5x, compared to 4x for the other models, and it has a rechargeable battery--the leather editions run on AAs. The products are expected to be released overseas this month. No pricing information was immediately available.