The good: Capable of excellent photos outdoors in good light; compact and comfortable.
The bad: No semimanual exposure modes; lens distortion; no zooming during movie capture; poor high-ISO noise profile; so-so auto white balance indoors.
The bottom line:The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H10 is a decent budget megazoom that can deliver very nice outdoor shots, but its photo quality falls short in other respects.
For the Cyber-shot DSC-H10 budget megazoom camera, Sony didn't change much from its predecessor, the Cyber-shot DSC-H3. Only its 230,000-pixel 3-inch LCD is new, compared with the 115,000-pixel, 2.5-inch version on the H3. Given the lack of an electronic viewfinder, that's a nontrivial enhancement, but pretty much the only one.
At 10.3 ounces with battery and Memory Stick Duo Pro card, the H10 is one of the lighter megazooms, and as compact as any of them. Still, I found it relatively comfortable to hold and use.
The grip is a tad shallow, which make may it uncomfortable for users with larger hands. A mode dial on top lets you choose from the various exposure modes--program auto, full auto, and manual--as well as the H10's handful of scene modes and movie mode.
The center control button--in the manual, Sony doesn't give it a name, just an iconic representation--sticks up a bit high, making it somewhat difficult to navigate without accidentally pressing it. Additionally, the Home and Menu buttons are flatter than I find comfortable.
One of my chronic gripes with Sony's menu system is that it doesn't wrap--once you've scrolled all the way to the end, it doesn't take you back to the beginning. You've got to scroll all the way back again.
Summary:
alaTest has collected and analyzed 365 reviews of Sony CyberShot DSC-H10 from international magazines and websites.
Experts rate this product 73/100 and users 89/100. Comparing these reviews to 540866 other Digital Compact Cameras reviews gives this product an overall alaScore™ 92/100 = Excellent.
Summary: I mentioned in the introduction to this review that the only apparent difference between the Sony DSC-H10 and its predecessor - the H3 which we reviewed in January - is the size and resolution of the screen.
Summary: This camera has a big zoom for its size, and features some useful program modes and manual setting possibilities, but if you want super-crisp photos at a resolution higher than 1600x1200, you'll want to look elsewhere.
Summary: The H10 still has a Carl Zeiss 10x zoom (38-380mm in 35mm terms). These high-quality optics distinguish the H10 from other models in this crowded field of 8-plus megapixel compact cameras
Summary: The H10 is the bottom rung on Sony's "Hi Zoom" ratio range of "H" Cyber-shot models but even so it is compact and well specified. The 8.1-megapixel sensor might seem lacking to some but in reality it means less noise issues at higher ISOs
Summary: The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H10's unique features are overshadowed by poor flash image quality and iffy face detection. If you're in the market for a budget superzoom, better, lower-priced options are out there.
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