Is a Sony CyberShot DSC-W200 Worth the Money?

A question I asked myself before is whether a major manufacturer of digital cameras can make one that costs less than $250 and works like it should. The company I'm talking about here is Sony, and the model is Cybershot DSCW200, an ultra compact camera, which costs a bit too much for the category that it's in.

The biggest concern when it comes to digital cameras is the quality of the image they can take. The DSCW200 doesn't exactly have a stellar performance in this department. On paper, the camera looks great, with 12 megapixels, but this is way too much for an ultra compact. It's just too much for an ultra compact digital camera, so ignore the marketing here. Those that use ultra compacts will either upload the photos to Facebook or Myspace, or they will view them on the LCD directly. This can be accomplished with a 6 megapixel camera easily. With 12 you can get a very large photo, which is something that people will never get to use.

Considering the price of the camera, I expected a lot more from the LCD of this camera. Too bad that Sony went the cheap way here and put only 115,000 pixels on the LCD, which is 2.5 inch. The quality of the picture looks grainy on the LCD and seeing it from an off angle doesn't work that well. If you want examples, the cameras that Canon produces in the same category have 230,000 pixels on a 3 inch LCD.

It's a small problem, but I'm still going to mention it. This camera comes with a proprietary USB cable, which means it's only produced by a single company. I like being able to choose.

The review is not over yet though. There are plenty of things that are wrong with this camera and you can see them all below:

- insufficient zoom from the zoom lens

- too many megapixels, which nobody uses and which get the price high

- the flash is slow to recharge

- can be used easily only by people with small hands

- if you want face detection, you need to use the auto mode, but it doesn't always work even then

- if you're making a video, the zoom will not work

That's about it. All in all, I think you should take a look around before you get a CyberShot DSC-W200.

Getting the perfect camera, is never an easy thing, due to the constantly changing technology. Fortunately, there are plenty of helpful websites online, that can narrow down your search and help you find the camera with all the features important to you

Canon Powershot sx110is