Sony GPS-CS1
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006The Sony GPS-CS1 is a new GPS product from Sony. The device is really just a simple GPS tracklogger designed to assist with Geotagging or Geocoding photos with GPS coordinates. The Sony GPS-CS1 will record your track points and then using the Sony GPS Image Tracker software will link each of the photos with their corresponding GPS coordinates (through GPS EXIF tags) so you can organize your photos by location.
The Sony GPS-CS1 comes with a 12 channel GPS receiver that is 3.5 inches long and weighs about two ounces. The GPS comes with a caribineer for easy clipping on to your favorite recreation device, backpack, etc. After the photos have been tagged with their coordinates with the GPS Image Tracker Software you can then view the photos on a map from the Sony Picture Motion Browser software.
“Whether you’re traveling to the Seven Wonders of the World, or just wondering where to buy your next house, our new GPS device can track your journey,” said David Johns, product manager for digital camera accessories at Sony Electronics. “Adding a geographic context to your digital images helps organize and make use of your photos in entirely new ways.”
Waypoints are recorded every fifteen seconds. If you do not have a Sony digital camera, you are not totally out of luck. The software should work with photos taken from other cameras, however Sony will not guarantee nor support such efforts.
Battery life should be about 10 hours on AA batteries. The GPS-CS1 can store about 15 days worth of trackpoints on the 31 MB of internal memory.
Personally, I’m not terribly excited about this product. Most people who are interested in geotagging their photos already own a GPS and will use their existing GPS to geotag their photos. Sometimes you might want a smaller GPS to record your trackpoints, but there are other GPS loggers out there which are about the same size and cost, but also work as a Bluetooth GPS and have rechargable batteries.
However if all you are interested in is geotagging your photos and you don’t want to take the time to figure out a software solution to work with a less expensive GPS receiver this might fit the bill.
You can get your hands on the Sony GPS-CS1 sometime in September for about $150.
Source: GPSReview
