Over the past few years Sanyo has become the leading manufacturer of compact video cameras, and as the market leader, they have to work hard to retain their position. This is why today Sanyo decided to come to us to introduce their shiny new Xacti CG9… Their user friendly entry level video camera.

Sanyo recognizes that women represent a huge percentage of their customers in Japan and worldwide. For a year or so Sony has worked closely with women in order to understand better their compact video camera needs. They were as surprised as I was to discover that a slim and small device is not one of the most attractive factors for them, they apparently think bigger and bulkier models are easier to handle… Basically a skinny Xacti was less attractive than a fatter one… (If this is also true when it comes to women choosing men… It could change my life!).

Anyway, our new CG9 retains the Xacti look, but is a little fatter than usual. Here are the specs: 9.1 Mpix CMOS, 40MB of internal memory, a 5x optical zoom, and H.264 video codec (video is recorded in VGA at 60fps max).

Bear in mind that Sanyo is thinking “entry level” and will offer VERY aggressive pricing worldwide. When it comes to video and photo quality, the change from CCD to CMOS may provide less crispy video than produced by other models, but you’ll still get decent video quality and great photo quality too.

Here are over 33 shots of the three cameras available in Japan, and a short video.