JVC Intros PICSIO Pocket Camera

Sometimes you don't need camera (or camcorder) that shoots a gazillion megapixels. You just want a small, simple camera that you can carry around in your pocket for everyday shooting. JVC realized this and just announced the company's first pocket flash memory camera, the PICSIO GC-FM1.

Think small and simple means you get low quality? Think again. PICSIO has a two-inch LCD screen, shoots true eight-megapixel stills and 1080p Full HD video, has a 4X digital zoom and image stabilization. Videos are recorded in MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format and stored as .MOV files that can be sent directly to YouTube and iTunes. The camera also has an HDMI connection for viewing videos on your HDTV, and an SD/SDHC slot for additional storage of up to 32GB.

JVC also wanted to make the camera easy to use. So, instead of tons of menus to go through, functions are on dedicated buttons. Power (on/off), playback, delete, video/still mode switching, and thumbnail display mode all have their own buttons. A four-way controller positioned in the middle controls zoom (by pressing up/down), still image viewing (by pressing left/right), and record start/stop (the center button).

The camera charges via USB connection and includes a USB cable, AV cable, hand strap, and the PC software comes already loaded into the cameras memory.

About the size of a small cell phone, it is available in three colors – Black Ice, Blue Steel and Purple Passion. Rather nice looking if I do say so myself. The JVC PICSIO GC-FM1 is available now for $199.95.