I am not a professional photographer but I was always interested to buy a good cam which is worth enough to be used for atleast 5 yrs without any upgrades.
I bought this cam(Japanese make) in May 2006 and till now it has helped me to capture around 3000 golden moments of my life.Earlier this I have tried my hands in panasonic, nikon but I always felt something missing in them.
You can always find the technical details from any gadget sites /sony so let me share my personal experiences with this wonderful Cam.
Pros:*
MP - A whopping 8.1 MP gives wonderful pictures with amzaing clarity and colour contrast.Though its a well known fact that any Cam above 5.1 - 10.1 MP gives almost same clarity, but I differ in this.I have tried 5.1 and 8.1 .I loved 8.1.It can help you take prints upto B3 size without compromizing the clarity.
Shutter speed - No image lags at all.Once you half press the button then shutter starts focussing and locks the object in focus only if the camera is stationary , which ultimately helps you get picture with good clarity.
User controls - Very easy to use.No fuss at all.
Flash - Tried a lot of times to capture pics in aboslute darkness but always resulted good pics.
Memory - Inbuilt 64 MB good if you are a seldom photographer.Well most of the time it doesnt happen So had to go for a 1 GB stick.
Size - Compact and fits easily in a pam.
Lens - This cam uses Carl Zeis 3X Zoom lens.which is widely used in most of the cams available in the market.
Audio/Video - Audio/Video recording quality is also good as expected from it.
Sony - I am a fan of Sony products .A brand which I can rely on.
Cons :
Cost - As every body know that Sony products are expensive, this isnt an exception.You can always find Cams of these features in other brands at lesser price than this.
Battery - This cam carries an Li battery and company claims it can help around 300+ pictures if once charged fully .But I always get 150-160 pics on a full charge.i expected it to deliver around 220-250 pics atleast , which it couldnt.
Other than these I couldnt find any negatives.
Its almost 2 years since I bought this cam and I am really happy & satisfied with its performance . I recommend this product to everyone.
Though Sony has launched a newer version Sony DSC TXXX series which has very advanced features like touch screen controls and it is an upgrade to W100 series.do give a try to it also which is my next upgrade :) .
Happy snapping ,
Thanks,
livletliv.