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Reviewed by UK Guest, 1st Feb 2007. |
| Review Summary: Lots of marketing jargon, no real quality |
Overall Score: 1/5
 
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Review: You just know that something which brands itself as having an '800x zoom' and 'nightshot plus' is a result of zealous marketing aimed at people who always go for the snappy terms and big numbers to impress their friends. To be fair to Sony, it seems as if all equipment nowadays is pushed using this tactic, so I will instead judge this camera on its own merits.
The camera is extremely light and very portable. It fits nicely in the hand, and ergonomics are good.
My first impression was that the body is strangely devoid of buttons, and that there seemed to be no controls for the menu interface on the outside of the camera. This is due to Sony's touch-screen menu interface which the user controls by pressing icons (with their finger!) on the flip-out LCD screen.
Initially, this may sound like an interesting idea as it gives the potential for far greater control than the typical button or jog dial layout.
In practice, it is a rather gimmicky interface, which is further hindered by being badly implemented. There is a certain amount of lag between pressing icons and seeing a response. If you have large fingers, it can be difficult to control, as some icons are small and it does require a fair amount of finger pressure to activate them.
As for the options themselves, there is the usual array of settings regarding date, time, aspect shape, recording quality, white balance, disk/recording control etc.
I am very pleased to report that there is both manual focus and manual exposure options available, both of which work fairly well although they are buried in the menus.
Autofocus and Auto exposure are suitably fast and accurate, which is to be commended.
Recording time is really quite impressive, even on the highest quality. Having a HDD is not as flexible as bringing a bag full of tapes, but I can envisage the 30gb space as being enough for most people.
The lens on this camera appears to be of good quality at all positions on the zoom. I rarely noticed any strange aberrations.
The lag time between pressing the shutter button and the recording starting is minimal. This is a huge improvement over tape based cameras.
However, startup time is really quite poor. The camera insists on showing the sony logo for several seconds, and then on showing you which mode you are in for another few seconds. By this time your subject may have disappeared!
Pure recording quality is the absolute weak point of this camera. Dynamic range is hideous, and you can get washed out skies and murky shadows even when it is sunny and the sky is a deep, dark blue. Resolution is poor, and the resulting videos are simply not suitable for anything other than holiday snapshots. Even then, they have a definite "you've been framed" style.
The sound quality is totally inadequate, and will clip out and distort regularly. There is also significant clicking and whirring from the hard disk heads which is very audible in quiet recordings.
Finally, the battery life appears to be completely unacceptable. The most I have managed to get from the supplied battery was 40 mins, and this was with the screen folded away regularly. The battery info is also unreliable, and it will tell you '2 hours' one minute, and '23 mins' the next.
Finally, a major problem for me is that the 'Handycam Station' docking module is required to hook the camera up to a PC. I find this very annoying, as it means that you will need to carry it anywhere you intend to offload video. If you forget it, you have a problem. Furthermore, it is just another clutter-making gadget to lose.. no doubt Sony would be perfectly happy in charging you an arm and a leg for a new one.
I am afraid on the whole I would not recommend this camera.
David |
Ratings
| Value For Money: |
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1 |
| Review Score: |
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1 |
| Recommended? | |
No |
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Digital Cameras