Why Buy A Sony Cybershot DSCW200 Digital Camera?

Is it possible for Glossalalia Rankin-Bass Holiday Specials 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 A Christmas Story 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 that ultra compact. Pez 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 that 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 Little Drummer Boy As a basis for comparison, the top Canon cameras in that 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 that 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 Rhode Island Lemon Laws 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 foolishmumbles.com/DigitalCameraRecommendations/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

So, there you have it. The bottom line here is, take a look at some foolishmumbles.com/DigitalCameraRecommendations/other ultra-compact cameras before buying a CyberShot DSC-W200. There's plenty to choose from, and your more likely to save money and foolishmumbles.com/DigitalCameraRecommendations/get a better camera in the long run.