Sanyo Japan announced that the company will soon roll out an update to its Xacti S-series of digital cameras. The Sanyo Xacti DSC-S5 is largely similar to the existing DSC-S3 and DSC-S4 models, first announced nine months ago. It shares its lens and 1/2.5" sensor size with the DSC-S4 model, but where that camera had a sensor resolution of four megapixels, the DSC-S5 is a five megapixel camera. Other specifications seem to be unchanged.

Sanyo remains one of the few digicam manufacturers using software interpolation to boost its spec table; note that the DSC-S5's maximum resolution of 10.2 megapixels is interpolated 2:1 from the actual sensor resolution. This will of course bring an attendant decrease in image quality, not to mention significantly larger file sizes that will run out your available flash memory much more quickly. Better interpolation results can usually be obtained in your PC anyway.

The Sanyo Xacti DSC-S5 digital camera will ship in Japan from February 15th, at a price of 35,000 before tax. This translates roughly to US$331, ignoring exchange rate fluctuations, taxes and duties.