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October 15, 2008
[REVIEW—SONY CYBER-SHOT DSC-T700]
Price: $600
A big surprise
The low-down: This 10 megapixel camera has a Zeiss-branded 35–140mm zoom lens that is folded into the width of the body. The lens is covered with a sliding panel which also serves as a secondary on-off switch. The only buttons on the body are for power, zoom, shutter and review – all other controls are accessed through the touch screen. The face area is a little larger than a credit card and it is 16mm thick. With its attractive brushed metal body (in four different colours) it shouts “fashion accessory”. The touch screen controls are comprehensive and well laid out and intuitive. The 9cm LCD gets grubby quickly.
Like: The image quality is surprisingly good. Resolution is good up to ISO200 and noise is well controlled with no tendency to turn into ugly black blobs in shadows. Response times are fast enough and the implementation of the touch-screen control is about the best we have seen.
Dislike: Auto white balance is erratic, particularly in open shadows where the camera errs towards the amber end. We are developing a deep loathing of Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick which is expensive, unique to Sony and doesn’t work in any of our three multi-card readers. This means that picture transfer must be done by attaching the camera to a USB port. Ridiculous.
Verdict: This camera is a surprise. We took one look at it and thought: “Party fashion accessory” and expected nothing from it. However, behind the eye-catching, feminine appearance there lurks a decent camera. The touch screen goes beyond the gimmicky into the seriously useful, but we’re not sure that we could live with a camera that always looks smudgy with finger prints. As a compact camera that is designed to go anywhere, take up minimum space, and produce good images, the little Sony is at the front of the pack.
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Posted by terry at October 15, 2008 11:19 PM
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Comments
You forgot to mention the onboard 4 gb memory so even without MS you can still store a lot of images.
Also the intelligent scene selection is great. I bought mine from JB which gave me a 10% discount and the final damage was only $495!
I had the Sony T1 when it first came out and I swore that I would never go back to Sony based on its poor image quality. Very surprised by the new Bionz processor with the Dynamic Range capability.
In terms of an automatic camera, this is very high tech indeed.
Posted by: Chris at November 1, 2008 11:07 PM