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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 34 reviews
- See all user reviews
Product summary
The good: Acceptable snapshots; compact; easy to use; decent performance; better-than-average movie quality.
The bad: Beyond ISO 80, photos look soft and smeary due to processing artifacts and noise.
The bottom line: The Sony Cyber Shot DSC-W100 is a decent snapshot camera, but better choices are out there.
Specifications: Digital camera type: Compact ; Resolution: 8.1 megapixels ; Optical zoom: 3 x ; See full specs
Price range: $599.95 check prices
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 07/11/2006
- Released on: 02/27/2006
Like the other models, I found the DSC-W100 to be an easy camera to learn and use, though the frequent trips into the menu system to change the metering scheme, the ISO speed, and the burst mode make it cumbersome to change these oft-used settings. The tiny controls complicate matters further.
Sony's inclusion of a manual-exposure mode strikes me as an odd choice as well. Semimanual modes--program shift, shutter-priority, and aperture-priority--tend to be much easier to use and more practical for snapshooters. Furthermore, since the camera provides only two aperture choices for a given focal length, the DSC-W100's manual exposure is actually quite difficult to use.
One advantage the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-W100 has over the DSC-W70 is a sensor that's capable of shooting at ISO 80. Photos shot at this sensitivity level--and to a certain extent, at ISO 100--are relatively sharp with little noise and few processing artifacts. Beyond that, the aggressive noise-suppression algorithms kick in, blurring and smearing details. Photos print reasonably well to as large as 8x10, but they look a little soft and foggy. In addition to some distortion in the bottom corners at its wide angle, the lens also produces some cyan and magenta fringing on the sides, as well as purple fringing on high-contrast edges.
When you toss the DSC-W100's movies into the picture, the camera suddenly looks a lot more appealing. Though you wouldn't want to play its standard-quality VGA captures at 100 percent, they look very good at QVGA (320x240). And its fine-quality movies look quite impressive played at actual size.
Despite being a solid shooter in good light, as well as performing strongly on movie capture, the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-W100 can't match the value of less expensive, lower-resolution competitors such as its brother, the DSC-W50, nor can its photos match those of the low-noise Fujifilm FinePix F30 or the Canon PowerShot SD600.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
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(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 34 reviews
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 3 of 34 user reviewsSee all 34 user reviews
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12 out of 14 people found this review helpful
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9 out of 9 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
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Where to buy
Sony Cyber Shot DSC-W100:
$599.95
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$599.95 | Yes |
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