The A380 performs fairly well; similarly, but not identically, to the A330, and overall a hair faster than the A350. It powers on and shoots in just 0.5 second, and can focus and shoot in a mere 0.4 second in good light and 0.6 second in dim. Shot-to-shot time is a solid 0.6 second. Flash recycle time is pretty slow for its class, pushing flash shot-to-shot time to 1.6 seconds--that's almost twice that of the D60 and Rebel XS, and just a bit slower than the K2000. Its continuous-shooting speed of 2.4fps is a lot slower than the Nikon and Canon--and marginally slower than the earlier model--and in practice feels too slow to keep up with kids and pets.
The AF system is surprisingly fast for its class, especially in Live View, which tends to be one of the Achilles heels of dSLRs. As a result it delivers a more point-and-shoot-like experience. However, you only see 90 percent of the scene, compared to 100 percent for most other cameras; that's even lower than the 95 percent viewfinder coverage. The LCD also seems to be the same one as on the previous generation of cameras, because I had the same difficulty viewing it in direct sunlight, even when tilted at various angles. The image stabilization works okay, testing out to a savings of about 2 1/3 stops when zoomed out to 200mm.
Despite using a different sensor, the A380's photos display many of the same strengths and weaknesses of the A330/A230. At first glance, I was very impressed by the photos I'd shot with the A380, but they simply didn't stand up to further scrutiny on some counts. At low ISO sensitivities, photos looked sharp and attractive. But like the A330/A230, they suffer from occasionally severe color shifts. Part of the problem is Sony's choice of default values, especially in its Creative Styles. As Pentax does with its K2000, Sony's attempt to provide more "consumer friendly" images with its default Creative Style settings results instead in poor color rendering--too cool outdoors and too warm indoors--which makes you think the white balance is off. Unfortunately, you can't tell that's what's happening because there's no "natural" or its equivalent, and Sony doesn't tell you what the contrast, saturation, and sharpness settings are for each style; they're all listed as 0, from which you increase or decrease. So if you know enough to change the settings, or shoot only raw, you can get some very nice photos out of the camera. But that's not the likely buyer for this model. However, it's also probably fixable via a firmware update if Sony chooses. While the color shifts are noticeable, however, they're not quite as bad in the A380's photos as the A330/A230's, and its white balance seems a bit better.
The A380 has a fairly typical noise profile that unsurprisingly matches that of the A330/A230--sharpness starts to degrade at about ISO 400, color noise begins to seep in at ISO 800, and by ISO 1600 images become both soft and noisy. But the extra resolution doesn't seem to provide enough extra sharpness to compensate for the A380's softer, noisier results at every level starting at ISO 400.
There's plenty to like in the Sony Alpha DSLR-A380, especially if you're not overly concerned with color accuracy. But like its siblings the A230 and A330, it doesn't really stand out in any particular way that might make it a recommended choice over its competitors.
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