Look at this thing!  What a beauty.  This is the Xacti CS1, a new camera that Sanyo is releasing in April.  @jasonrundell told me about it on Twitter and now I am obsessed and can’t stop staring at it.  I want to get my hands on one like you wouldn’t believe.

Not having a decent still camera is really hurting my blogging.  I love the Flip camera that I am using now, way more than using a still camera in movie mode, but it doesn’t do stills.  I don’t know why, but I have never enjoyed talking into a still camera set to movie mode, even though Canon cameras take great movies.  I never took much interest in getting a camcorder because they’re so bulky, and so much of why I need a movie camera is for slice-of-life stuff that’s going on all the time.

This new camera looks like it might excel at both – still photos as good as a digital camera, but as compact and intuitive as a Flip camera.  And it’s so little I can take it everywhere even easier than a Flip or a still camera.

I only have so many pockets so I can’t be walking around with a whole bunch of gadgets.  Right now I’m walking around with an iPod and a Flip camera.  I need to get a phone (Hello, Bell/Telus/Rogers/Virgin. Wind Mobile??  Where are you in the Social Media space???), and I was thinking I would find one with a half-decent camera on it but maybe I don’t need to worry about a camera on my phone if this Sanyo does both both stills and video well.

Check these stats:

• Full 1080 HD video
• 8 megapixel camera
• Exclusive Sound Zoom Audio Recording Mode – I don’t know what this is but I am excited to find out!
• MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Movie Recording Format – this is a big one because Flip shoots AVI files which are way bigger and are more of a Windows thing.

Sanyo: This blogger (me) blogs all the time and shoots a ton of video.  I will let the people know if this camera has the goods.  I take my camera with me everywhere, twenty-four-seven, so everyone is going to see this.  Hook it up!!  We’re about to do some major Blog Stars events that involve video.  Let me play with one!

Tags: camera, hook me up