The Best Digital Camera For Under $250 - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20 (10x Optical Zoom)

Specifications: The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20 digital camera is essentially a point-and-shoot camera with a powerful zoom (10x in optical zoom and 2x in digital zoom). It can also be considered as a compact mega-zoom camera. It has a 10MP image sensor, a brilliant 3-inch LCD display (230'000 dots) and is powered by a rechargeable Li-ion battery. This model supports Memory Stick Pro and Memory Stick Duo flash memory cards. It also has 11MB of integrated memory.

Design: Due to the powerful zoom, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20 is a little larger than regular point-and-shoot digital cameras. It measures at 4.2 x 1.9 x 2.7 inches and weighs in at 9.8 ounces. Nevertheless, it will still fit well into your jacket pocket. It has an all-black external casing and generally looks like a professional hybrid DLSR camera. The flash is located on top of the lens and flips upwards when you need to use it. You will find the on/off button, mode dial and zoom dial on top of the camera, while most of the other controls are located behind the camera next to the LCD display.

Features & Performance: The layout of the controls on the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20 is extremely easy to use. To access the various settings and modes, all you need to do is to press the 'Menu' button on the back (unlike the 'Home' and Menu' buttons found on some older Sony models. The interface is quite user friendly and you will quickly get the hang of it after a couple of shot. It is quite a speedy camera (for a mega-zoom), with a shot-to-shot time of 2.1 seconds. The photo quality was also very good, especially at lower ISO ranges (below 400). The images were also surprisingly sharp for a mega-zoom model. It also records HD videos at 720p and more importantly, you can use the zoom function while recording. All in all, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20 is an extremely buy for the price and the features that comes with it.

Sony Ericsson C901 Review - New Sony C901 Cybershot Camera Phone

The Sony Ericsson C901 is the new cyber shot smart phone launched by Sony which sparkles with its powerful features.

Hardware

The C901 is a rectangular shaped cool mobile smart phone that comes in three exciting colors of black, peach and silver. The face of the phone is occupied by a TFT screen with a width of 2.2 inches and a T9 numeric physical key pad that joins below the screen.

All buttons of the phone are finger friendly and strategically placed for ergonomics. The camera lens can also be very easily accessed by just sliding open the active lens cover. There are dedicated camera buttons for quick picture snapping. At 107 the phone is light and portable. The phone's accelerometer allows auto rotation of the phone.

Communication Features

The Sony Ericsson C901 supports text input, SMS, MMS, instant messaging, email and corporate messaging with exchange active sync. The phone book, organizer, notes, timer, tasks, clock, calendar, alarm, calculator and flight mode aspects provide competent support for your communication in daily life. Speaker phones enhance audio quality. The Sony Ericsson C901 features a quad band GSM for voice.

camera

The Sony C901 has a 5 Mega pixel camera with high end attributes for a perfect shot. The auto focus provides perfect focus for a crisp photograph. The smile detection feature guarantees photographs with smiling faces. The 16 times digital zoom furthers assists in taking quality pictures.

The superior xenon flash makes photos brighter in dark conditions. The face detection attribute, photo feeds, smart contrast, photo fix, geo tagging and Best pic are other bonus features that the camera presents to enhance the quality of photographs. Picture blogging feature lets you upload your photos on the internet.

Multimedia Features

The Sony Ericsson C901 has a media player for listening to your favorite tracks. The Track ID attribute assists track recognition whereas the sound quality is augmented by mega bass feature. Album art aspect is also transfused in the phone. FM radio with RDS is also present in the phone. Bluetooth connectivity makes wireless listening plausible.

The Sony C901 has video recording capabilities. The main camera itself performs video calling. Video stabilizer, video light and red eye reduction attributes of the C901 helps you record quality videos. Video blogging is also supported by the phone. The phone allows access to You Tube.

Video viewing and video streaming functions are also supported by the phone. This latest Sony Ericsson is also a platform for both 3D games and motion games. Internet experience on the phone is enhanced by 3G data network support (dual band HSPA) and internet technologies like web feeds, wap and a superior browser.

The phone's Google Maps application helps you find the way to new places. GPS facility is available on the phone. It has a good battery life with 9.5 hours talk time and a standby time of 430 hours.

The Sony Ericsson C901 is a great choice if you want a functional and stylish camera phone.

Why Buy A Sony Cybershot DSCW200 Digital Camera?

Is it possible for arguably the biggest electronic gadget manufacturer on the planet to produce a respectable digital camera for under $250? I'm talking about Sony here, and the camera in question is the Sony Cybershot DSCW200 Digital camera. The DSCW200 is an ultra compact digital, but is priced on the high side of that ultra compact category. Is it a worthy contender, or just a poser?

Let's start off with the most important consideration of any camera... image quality. Not so respectable with the DSC-W200. Sony opted to go with 12 mega pixels in this ultra compact. Somewhat akin, to trying to squeeze an elephant into the passenger seat of your Mini Austin. Damn hard to do, and even if your successful, where are you going to drive with an elephant? Marketing hype aside, 12MP is complete overkill for an ultra compact camera. The majority of pictures from an ultra compact camera are going to be viewed on the LCD, or uploaded to MySpace and FaceBook pages. Nobody is looking to blow these up, frame them, and then hang them over the fireplace. 5 or 6 Megapixels would have been fine. Probably better, as image noise would have been reduced.

For this price, I had bigger expectations from the DSC-W200 LCD. Unfortunately, it looks like Sony cheaped out here. 115,000 pixels for a 2.5 inch LCD is not great. It actually pretty grainy, and quite hard to view off angle, or in bright sunlight. As a basis for comparison, the top Canon cameras in this category sport 3 inch LCD screens with 230,000 pixel resolution. At least Sony did provide an optical viewfinder. Not a great one, but a viewfinder none the less.

While this next quibble is minor I agree, I simply have to bring it up. The USB cable provided by Sony for the DSC-W200 is proprietary. I really hate being forced into buying a product that is produced by only one company. I like choice. Sony has a nasty habit of pushing proprietary technology going back to Beta Video, the Memory Stick, and now with the whole Blu-Ray fiasco. Not to say those weren't good/better technologies, I just like choice.

But wait, that's not all. Sony made enough slip ups with the CyberShot DSC-W200, to make even the most ardent Sony lover cast a flirtatious eye towards other suitors. Here's a few more reasons:

- the zoom lens doesn't have enough zoom

- excessive megapixels has driven price too high

- time for flash to recharge is unacceptable

- big handed users will find camera controls difficult

- face detection is only available in auto mode

- face detection works inconsistently

- zoom feature won't work when shooting videos

Sony Cybershot DSC W210 Review

The Sony Cybershot DSC W210 packs plenty of power with its 12 megapixel sensor. This camera is small enough to fit into most pockets. It is available in silver, dark grey, pink and green. The Cybershot DSC W210 has a 4x optical zoom lens.

For most purposes you are likely to find the 12 megapixels overkill. Even if you are looking to make large prints you should find 6 to 8 megapixels plenty unless you are looking to go up to poster size and beyond. If you were planning to do that then the likelihood is you would be looking to invest in a more expensive and better quality camera anyhow.

To me the big advantage of having so many megapixels is that Sony has included a feature called smart zoom. This allows you to increase the amount of zoom available as long as you are prepared to sacrifice some of the megapixels you shoot at. In the past I have even found that shooting at lower megapixels can increase the quality of the images you shoot. Other advantages include taking up less space on a memory card and faster times to upload your photos to a computer. If you activate smart zoom you can increase zoom up to 25x. This may be overkill as at that setting you can only capture pictures for playback on a computer or television screen, but there are plenty of steps in the middle where you can find the right balance between print size and zoom.

The Cybershot DSC W210 fits into a group of pocket cameras that are less expensive than the top of the range models. The main reasons behind the savings tend to be the design of the cameras and the build quality. If you do not mind a fairly plain looking digital camera then you can save yourself plenty of money.

In terms of features there is not that much to choose between this camera and some of the more expensive ones. The 2.7 inch LCD screen compares well enough and the only obvious feature I can think of that is missing here is mechanical image stabilisation. This is where image stabilisation is handled either by gyroscopes in the lens or by making tiny shifts to the position of the sensor.

Aside from this Sony has incorporated some of the latest buzz features. These include face detection for sharper portraits and a smile shutter that automatically fires off a shot when the Cybershot DSC W210 detects someone is smiling. I have never noticed face detection making that much difference to a portrait shot and only you can decide how much value a smile shutter adds to the camera for you. Something you do not often see on a camera this size is the ability to add conversion lenses. This can improve the telephoto or wide angle capabilities of the camera. In order to do this you also need to buy a lens adapter.

The camera is able to produce High Definition still images, but it can only output standard definition movies.

On the whole I found the camera easy to use. Sony lays out its menus in a sensible way. They are icon rather than text based, but text does show up as you scroll through the icons.

When it comes to picture quality the Cybershot DSC W210 does a solid job. I cannot claim the pictures it produces are anything out of the ordinary, but on the whole the camera does a decent all round job if you are looking for a general snapshot camera with a reasonable price tag.

Similar cameras you may wish to take a look at include the Panasonic Lumix FS6, Panasonic Lumix FS7, Panasonic Lumix FS15 and the Olympus FE-5000.