Sony Cyber T50 camera review
Design There are three gorgeous versions of this aluminum digital camera. While this one is silver the DSC-T50 it’s also available in a fabulous red and steely black. Even though it’s small, measuring a slender 3.75 x 2.25 x 9 inches and weighing 5.8 ounces while you could hide it away easily, you’re not going to want to. You’re going to want to show off this little baby. Simplicity is the key in the design and all you get at the front of the camera is a 3x Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens, the AF Assist lamp and flash. Continuing this trend, the top of the camera has three buttons – the small on/off and optical image stabiliser on either side of the slightly larger shutter button. Turn the camera around and you’ll see a larger than average 3 inch LCD screen which is a touch screen. And because of this the only other buttons you need on the back are the zoom, a button to actually activate the screen and display option. On the left you’ll find a compartment for the Lithium batter and the memory card slot. On the other side there’s a switch for playback, still or video shooting. And right down the bottom you’ll find a metal tripod mount, speaker and port for the combination USB/AV/DC-in cable. |
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| Setup/Installation |
| You’ll need to get the touch screen synchronised by tapping in on the corners but other than that if you’ve used a digital camera before you won’t have any problems with this. |
| Features |
| The DSC-T50 has loads of lovely features. To start with there’s that big 3 inch screen which we love. And the fact it’s a touch screen means there’s no need for one of those horrible wheels you get on all other cameras. There’s no view finder which is a bit of a shame, but then with such a large screen on the T50 you don’t really miss it. The 7 megapixel camera comes with a 3x Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens which has a 35mm effective focal length range of 38 - 114mm. The Sony T50 also includes ISO sensitivity from 80 to 1000, shutter speeds from 30 to 1/1000 second, a choice of Multi-pattern, Center-weighted, or Spot metering, five white balance presets, 10 scene modes, USB and video connectivity, and both Memory Stick Duo / Pro Duo storage on top of the aforementioned 56MB of built-in memory. As well as this the Sony digital camera also comes with Shutter lag with AF / AE is rated at 0.28 of a second, and the Sony Cybershot DSC-T50's burst speed and depth are listed as 5 shots at 1.1 frames per second, while the regular shot-to-shot interval is 1.4 seconds. There’s also the Sony Super SteadyShot optical image stabilisation and an in-camera slide show with music and the ability to shot movies with MPEG VX movie options at around 30fps on 640 x 480 pixel resolution. |
| Performance |
| This is a decent camera and on the whole is good but there are some issues. We liked the idea of a touch screen but we found that unless you had nails it was difficult to select what you wanted. Even with the stylus the screen didn’t always respond and we found ourselves pressing the screen several times before the DSC-T50 understood what we wanted. But if you’re the kind of person that doesn’t really play around with exposure or white balance etc once you’ve set up the camera, then there’s nothing to worry about. Other than that other features were pretty good. Actual performance of the digi cam was very good. From the time you pressed the power button to taking your first picture only took 1.5 seconds, and in between shots it took around 1.5 seconds without a flash, sneaking up to 1.5 seconds in low-contrast conditions. The picture quality was good on the whole although not so great in low light, there was very little noise interference and the battery on one single charge could take up to around 400 photos. And finally, when you've taken your photos you can show them off on the built-in music and slide show. |
| What's In The Box? |
| Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T50 Digital Camera, Rechargeable InfoLithium Battery, Battery Charger, A/V Cable, USB Cable, DC-in Multi-Connector Cable Wrist Strap, Paint pen stylus, Software CD-ROM, User Manual. |
| Overall Opinion |
If you like the idea of a touch screen digital camera then the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-T50 would be a top choice for a compact digital camera. It looks great, works well, is easy to carry around and will definitely have people stopping you on the street to ask you what you’ve got in your hand. Having tested out all the Sony products we’d say if you’re after a simple life we’d recommend the Sony N1, but if you’re a bit more tech savvy then the T50 is the one to opt for. By Hayley Malyon |
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Pros + Touch-screen interface + Very large LCD screen + Excellent shutter response + Good flash range |
Cons - Touch screen interface can be awkward to use - High-ISO shots are very noisy - Expensive |
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Picture Quality 8/10
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Battery Life 8/10
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Setup Simplicity 7/10
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Build Quality 8/10
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Ease of Use 8/10
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Overall Rating 
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18/10/2006 at 2:53:56pm
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