Dubai, March 2009 - Sony announced that it has won 17 International Forum Design (iF) Product Design Awards, including three coveted gold awards, at a ceremony held on 3rd March 2009- the first day of the CeBit trade fair in Hanover, Germany. Honouring exceptional design for over half a century, the iF Design Award 2009 attracted almost 3,000 entries from 39 different countries. An independent design institution, iF has a longstanding reputation for supporting and recognising designs within the industry.

Three of only 50 gold awards were given to the Cyber-shot™ DSC-T700 and DSC-T77 digital still cameras, and Active Style Headphones Series. The remaining 14 iF product design awards won by Sony embraced many different Sony product categories and included awards for BRAVIA EX1 Picture Frame LCD TV, XEL-1 the world's first OLED TV, DAV-F500 Home Theater System, VGF-CP1 Digital Photo Frame and WALKMAN® S Series video MP3 player.

The gold award winning products highlight how innovative technology and unique design is fundamental to the Sony product development process of ensuring quality and reliability.

Designed to be thin, the Cyber-shot™ T700 has a clean brushed metal appearance which is elegant and minimal. It includes a photo album feature that recognises when photographs are taken and indexes them into folders automatically, making sorting through all those pictures far quicker.

The credit-card sized Cyber-shot™ T77 is covered with stainless steel plates and is only 13.9mm thick. Benefitting from 'Intelligent Scene Recognition,' it automatically adjusts picture settings from portrait, to landscape as well as macro mode, depending on the type of photo you are attempting to take.
Designed with energy in mind, the Active Style Headphones Series are for people on the move who want a portable stylish product. The ear hugging design ensures the headphones always stay in place.

iF product design gold awards

• Digital Still Camera Cyber-shot™ DSC-T700
• Digital Still Camera Cyber-shot™ DSC-T77
• Active Style Headphones Series

iF product design awards 2009

• BRAVIA EX1 Picture Frame LCD TV (This product is not available for sale in the Middle East)
• OLED TV XEL-1 (This product is not available for sale in the Middle East)
• Home Theater System DAV-F500 
• Digital Camcorder Handycam® DCR-SR85/75/65/55/46/45/36/35(E) & Soft Carrying Case LCS-SRC 
• HDV Camcorder HVR-Z7 
• Digital SLR Camera α350
• Digital SLR Camera α900 
• Digital Photo Frame Canvas Online VGF-CP1 
• Digital Photo Frame S-Frame DPF-V Series 
• Active Speaker System Sountina NSA-PF1 
• Headphones MDR-EX500 
• Linear PCM Recorder PCM-D50 (This product is not available for sale in the Middle East)
• Digital Audio Player WALKMAN® S Series 
• USB Flash Drive Micro Vault USM-LX/L Series

Notes to Editors:

The iF product design award 2009 were chosen by a judging panel of 28 renowned experts to determine which companies and designers have met the iF criteria of design calibre. Since 1954, an iF Award has been considered one of the most respected honours in the design industry. The competition attracts agencies and their clients, corporations, designers, architects, and entrepreneurs from around the world. The level of competition has been higher than ever with entries from an additional four countries since 2007.