One of the coolest features is the ability to always take 12MP pictures, but set it at 3MP or 5MP file size and it will allow you to effectively zoom in further on the 12MP picture and then crop it without loosing quality. All of this is done seamlessly without the user having to do any adjustments - just keep zooming in further and it will tell when you’ve crossed the optical zoom threshold and are zooming in on the larger image. Zoom purists are able to turn the feature off if they don’t like it.
I especially enjoy the Extra High Sensitivity(ISO6400) for low light photography without using a flash. It has been very useful for candid photography.
As ever, the menus and the display have improved greatly between the three Sony digital cameras I’ve owned. The menus are bright, intuitive, and incredibly descriptive since there’s more screen space on the camera. The camera offers a number of easy to get to modes - just rotate the dial on the exterior of the camera and you can have it in auto or fully manually modes, set it to do nighttime landscapes or nighttime portraits, as well as several other options.
The videos it takes are great, although I was disappointed that it lacks the ability to zoom in while filming and the fact that the resolution size isn’t that big. The microphone on the camera is fantastic, though. My biggest disappointment, however, is the speed of the Memory Stick duo. Even with 5MP pictures, there is a 1.5-2 second write time lag). Even worse, is that the camera doesn’t support high-speed transfer rates with the Memory Stick Pro Duo High-Speed cards(I tested it in the store). It takes about 3 seconds to write a 12MP file. However, writing to the internal memory(31MB) is almost instantaneous.
Lag time, while not that of digital SLR’s is OK, not outstanding but good. Start up time is very good and it has about a 3 minute time out period so it’s not off everytime you get ready to take a photo(very important U/W) and if it is off it comes on very quickly.
All the Sony cameras I’ve owned have had phenomenal battery life. The camera comes with a small battery charger that plugs straight into an outlet. The prongs on the charger fold into the charger so they are protected while traveling.Having purchased an extra battery has enabled me to always have a charged one on hand.
I also bought a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo card with the camera, which holds about 816 12MP photos, 1225 8MP photos, 1559 5MP photos, and 2501 3MP photos. At the highest quality video(640 Fine), the card can hold about 50 minutes of video and three hours at 640 Standard. Dropping it to the lowest quality(320) yeilds 12 hours of video time.
I’ve been very happy with this purchase and after all the years of waiting on the technology to catch up, I finally have a relatively inexpensive pocket-size camera that I can always take with me, that has a decent zoom(if you’re using the precision crop-style zoom), and can take really high-quality photos. Sony has already started releasing 5x optical zooms on their pocket-size cameras now, so I expect the next incarnation of the W line of Sony cameras will be quite perfect.