Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P100

Posted by T3 Online on Tue 28 Sep 2004

Another winner from the Jap giant

If Sony's designers put their minds to it, we're sure they could even make a colonic irrigation kit look sexy. Given that most Cyber-shot cameras have looked pretty much exactly the same for the last four years, it's amazing how refreshing the P100 feels. It's smaller than previous models and finished in a lightweight metal casing. The front has a stylish letterbox flash and the back is home to a sharp 1.8-inch LCD. On paper, the 5.1-megapixel chip and silent 3x zoom are little to write home about, and the zoom and navigation controls are too small for intuitive shooting. The multi-point focus system is usually fast but panics like a headless chicken when it can't lock on, making the display blink and wobble.

You've got auto and scene modes for novice users, plus manual exposure and several burst modes (up to 1.6 frames per second) for more serious snappers. Although you'll need a Memory Stick PRO to record movies at the highest quality - just a normal 32MB Memory Stick is supplied - the standard 640 x 480-pixel (telly-sized) movies are smooth and colourful. It's just a shame you can't use the zoom while shooting a clip.

In the same way that the design's been refreshed, the bog-standard camera sensor has been tweaked to produce some lovely images. Colours are bold and bright without you requiring sunglasses to look at them, and there's more sharpness and detail here than you'll find from similarly compact cameras. All in all, this is a welcome addition to Sony's camera range, and is well worth a look if you're in the market for a conventional digital camera.