S$799
Product Summary
7.8
out of 10View score
The bad: Small control buttons; average battery performance.
The bottom line: The T7 will appeal to those who wants an ultracompact camera that has a strong built, and yet take reasonable pictures.
Read full review of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T7 »
Average User Rating
from 8 users
CNET Asia Review
Yet another introduction to Sony's Cyber-shot digicam family, the DSC-T7 redefines the meaning of an ultracompact camera. It comes with pretty much the same features as the earlier T-series cameras with the key difference being its thickness, or rather, lack of. The T7 measures 91.7 x 60.2 x 14.7mm with its thinnest point at 9.8mm, excluding the lens cover. For its price of S$799 (US$564.07), we are not sure if itÂ’s worth the twiggy-thin profile.
Design
The hype about the T7 is arguably its form factor. Measuring just 14.7mm at its thickest point and weighing a mere 137g (with battery, Memory Stick Duo and neck strap), the metallic 5-megapixel camera fits comfortably into our breast pockets without making us feel like we are carrying a clunker.
Its sleek design is complemented with a metallic finish to give the camera an overall meaty experience without feeling fat. The controls on the reverse are positioned to the left, opposite to most other compact cameras, and somewhat hampering one-hand operation for right-handers. Rather than act against it, the left-hand dials compel the user to use both hands when taking pictures, giving the camera a firmer hold. All the controls are small, so if you have large hands, you should test drive the T7 before you decide to buy.
Along with its minimalist design, the T7 sports a 2.5-inch hybrid clear photo LCD screen. We had no problems viewing pictures during our tests in broad daylight with the anti-reflection display. It beats having to hold our hands over the monitor in order to shade it from direct sunlight. One thing to note, there's no optical viewfinder.
The positioning of the lens and the built-in flash are just a little too close for comfort. This resulted in a lot of post-correction for red-eye on several of our night shots. In fact, our initial snaps with the T7 had quite a fair bit of unwanted attention from our fingers which tended to wrap around the lens while we were holding the camera. Of course, this wasn't too much of a problem as it just took a little bit of getting used to.
Like its older brethren, the DSC-T1, the T7's lens cover doubles as a power switch. The unit can be turned on by sliding down the lens cover or by pressing the power button on the right of the camera. The lens cover slides smoothly and has a snap-on feature that prevents accidental opening or closing.
The neck strap that comes with the T7 proved useful when we brought the unit out for tests. We had a choice of slotting the camera into our pockets or hanging it around our necks, both of which is a fashion statement in itself.
Features
The T7 serves primarily as a point-and-shoot camera with enough features for most of the common uses. The 3x Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar optics makes use of a prism so that it does not have a protruding telescopic lens. This feature eliminates the annoying wait for the lens to retract before the camera can be stored away.
More advanced shutterbugs will appreciate some of the manual controls offered by the T7, even if these are somewhat limited. The unit includes three metering modes (multi-point, center-weighted and spot) and five focus presets (0.5m, 1.0m, 3.0m, 7.0m and infinity). In addition, there are options for exposure compensation, manual ISO settings, white balance controls and an autofocus (AF) illuminator that helped us frame our shots in dim-light conditions.
In terms of menu navigation, it would have been better if there were descriptions for the various scene modes. Like the T1, it was confusing to access the setup options of the camera initially. We had to press the right arrow key to configure the camera. To access the shooting modes, we had to scroll up, and then right again to reach the manual options. By default, we took the round button in the middle of the four directional arrows as the Enter key. It serves few functions except in the camera setup menu.
Performance
The T7 was very responsive with its startup at just slightly over a second. Its shot-to-shot interval came in at a commendable speed (between 1 and 2 seconds) without preview and with flash off. The autofocusing (AF) system worked fairly well except when in ambient light conditions where it took a slightly longer time, averaging between 2 and 3 seconds.
The battery performance was somewhat disappointing. We managed to take around only 110 shots, alternating between flash on and off; zooming between the W and T ends; playback, transferred and deleted images.
Image quality
In terms of image quality, the T7 delivered sharp and vivid pictures taken outdoors where there was adequate lighting. Skin tones were generally well-balanced and natural. However, the pictures exhibited noise under low-ambient light and evening conditions that could be clearly identified with the naked eye. Using a tripod with the supplied stand gave us more decent exposures although it defeated the whole purpose of being an ultracompact when you had to bring a tripod along each time you brought the camera for that special night out.
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User Reviews
First Camera I Owned
Jul 27, 2006Rating: 6 out of 10 (Good)
Pros: Light, Easy to Carry
Cons: Battery Time Is Too Low, Blurry Pictures
Opinion:
This is the first camera I owned. It is easy to carry; size of a credit card, not heavy, fashionable. The colors of the pictures are pretty; more modes for you to choose.
The bad thing is that the battery won't last too long, so you have to recharge it again.
Another thing is that this is not taking good motion pictures. The pictures blurred a lot; not good for taking pictures at night.
ULTIMATE , ONE CANNOT FIND A BETTER 1
Jun 13, 2006Rating: 9 out of 10 (Spectacular)
Pros: slimmest in the world , wat else does 1 need , sexy looks
Cons: no pause or zoom while video recordin
Opinion:
ultimate super compact camera
Feb 13, 2006Rating: 9 out of 10 (Spectacular)
Pros: slim-est camera around, wow factor, good photos
Cons: left sided controls abit of a hussle to use
Opinion:
