Some of the camera's technology was inspired by the former Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D, such as the man-machine command interface/commands, LCD menus, viewfinder, and lens mount.

On March 8, 2007, at the PMA Trade Show, Sony announced two new α cameras, both positioned to be "above" the α100 in the Alpha line-up in terms of price and functionality.

The α700 initially received criticism from the review community for their "cooked RAWs", a function that integrated a noise reduction algorithm on high-ISO images – including on raw files (hence, "cooked" into the files).

Other updates included extending exposure bracketing 2 EV and improving high-ISO image grain.

However, the α700 used a pentaprism viewfinder instead of a pentamirror, had a higher burst speed (5 frames per second vs 2.5), had a higher resolution LCD screen, magnesium alloy body, twin control dials, better environmental seals, dual flash media slots (CF and MS-DUO), a PC Sync socket, more autofocus points, a stronger autofocus motor, and HDMI output.