2011’s Best Gadgets: Cameras

A boxy shape has been a hallmark of camera design since the earliest days of photography, so the outside-the-box thinking behind Casio’s Tryx camera (pictured; $250; casio.com), coming in April, is refreshing. Its basic elements—lens, screen and body—swivel and flip into almost any position, then fold back into a compact half-inch-thin frame, while a sensitive 12.1-megapixel CMOS sensor, a wide-angle 21-mm lens and HD-video capability promise quality images. Meanwhile, new cameras like the Olympus XZ-1 ($500; olympusamerica.com) are taking the best features of big digital SLRs and putting them into compact boxes that are easy to tote. The XZ-1 features a superfast wide-angle lens and large, light-gathering CCD sensors usually found in more expensive SLR models.