On the back of the camera you'll find a restyled compartment cover, it's now made from plastic and coated with a metallic paint to match the rest of the camera body (much neater). Behind this cover are the DC-IN terminal (from battery charger / AC adapter), USB connection and A/V (video & audio) output connector. Cables are provided for USB and A/V connection.

The bottom of the camera is simple enough, a plastic strip covers the entire base with a single rubber foot one side and the tripod mount about half way. Good news is that the mount itself is metal, bad news is that it's located quite close to the edge of the camera which may lead to the camera tilting forwards on a tripod head. (Although at this level I can't imagine that many people will be tripod mounting this camera).

The DSC-P9's flash has a greater quoted output range than the DSC-P5, by 1.0 m (3.3 ft) at telephoto (this has probably been achieved by boosting ISO sensitivity for flash shots). The P9's flash range is quoted as 0.5 - 3.8 m (1.8 - 12.5 ft). To the right of the viewfinder window you can see the orange AF assist lamp. This casts a very bright orange light over the subject in low light situations to assist the camera's AF system. The AF assist lamp can be disabled.

The DSC-P9 is fitted with a Sony 3x optical zoom lens, this provides an equivalent 35 mm focal length range of 39 to 117 mm. This lens has a maximum aperture of F2.8 at wide angle and F5.6 at full telephoto. This may not be particularly fast but is a fairly normal max. aperture for an ultra-compact digital camera. Experience however has shown that the Sony lenses aren't as good as the "Carl Zeiss" lenses used on other Sony digital cameras.