S$799
Product Summary
7.6
out of 10View score
The bad: Slow F3.5 maximum aperture; too reliant on touchscreen.
The bottom line: The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T50 keeps the better features of the DSC-T30, but adds a touchscreen interface we could've lived without.
Read full review of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T50 »
Average User Rating
from 3 users
CNET Asia Review
Design
Pricing the T30 and T50 identically is probably the best thing Sony could've done. As we've seen with the touchscreens on Sony's camcorders, not everyone likes the interface. In general, we find it somewhat clunky and, especially on screens smaller than 3 inches, cramped. The worst part is that touchscreens often aren't as responsive as hard buttons tend to be. We often ended up pressing the virtual touchscreen buttons multiple times before they worked.
Sony includes a stylus, which helps a lot, but it doesn't tuck into the camera body. Instead, you're supposed to attach it to the camera's strap, and I doubt many people will actually do that. Outside of the stylus, our best advice is to keep your fingernails long enough to use them when navigating the camera's menus. The screen is more responsive to fingernails than to softer fingertips.
The menus themselves could also use some refinement. For instance, the first screen you come to includes seven choices--shooting mode, flash mode, focus mode, resolution, exposure compensation, timer on/off, and macro/magnifying glass on/off--as well as a menu button. That menu button leads you to a second level of menus, which lets you adjust other settings, such as ISO, white balance, color mode, metering mode, JPEG quality, and others, and also has a button to lead you to the Setup menu, where you can adjust even more settings. This means you have to toggle past the main menu page every time you want to change the ISO, and you have to navigate past two pages just to format a memory card or turn the red-eye reduction preflash burst on or off.
Features
As much as I've been harping on the touchscreen, my issues with it may not matter as much to you if you don't change your camera's settings. If you're the type to set your camera up once, leave everything on auto, and just press the shutter release, then the sleek, sparse design offered by the touchscreen--there are a grand total of two buttons and a zoom rocker on the camera back--will probably be very appealing to you.
However, given the amount of empty space, it would've made much more sense for Sony to include a few buttons next to the LCD to simplify the menu system. For instance, just including dedicated buttons for direct access to the three levels of menus would have made the camera much more usable.
The rest of the camera's features and functions are essentially the same as the T30's. In other words, we like it. You won't find manual exposure controls, but those are rare in a pocket camera like this, anyway. If Sony had added aperture- and shutter-priority modes instead of a touchscreen, they would have set themselves apart from the pack in a more meaningful way.
Our only real gripe would be that the 3x optical zoom lens only opens as wide as an equivalent of 38mm. With so many pocket cameras offering 28mm lenses, and given that Sony hasn't widened the zoom range since the T-series was instituted, it's definitely time for a change, and that change should also include a faster lens. At its widest angle of view, the aperture is F3.5, while an F2.8 lens would be better suited to low-light shooting, such as at museums, nightclubs, and indoor parties.
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User Reviews
Do the TOUCH
Nov 26, 2007Rating: 9 out of 10 (Spectacular)
Pros: Wide 3.0" touch-sensitive LCD, Paint Tool, 7.2 MP with Dual-Anti Shake function, Microscope (Lens) Macro mode
Cons: Available in Japanese only (if bought from Japan), Pricey (if bought elsewhere - not in Japan)
Opinion:
I've been using it for roughly 5 months now and its doing great!I love it, my friends love it, even my dog loves it!hehe, having a wide screen makes it more fun to capture spontaneous moments without leaving anything from the background. The Lens function lets you take pictures so close that you wouldn't want to stop once you started snapping it. You can also play with the Paint tool function and just doodle all-over the pictures without damaging the orignal file. It's Dual-Anti Shake function helps a lot when you're taking pictures on the go. However, photos taken from its max 1000 ISO can be somewhat noisy and you would rather not use it unless needed badly. The one I'm using is from Japan, and its not a surprise to find out that it only has ONE available language programmed in it and its definitely not English. So you better brush up in your ... Read more
It's a very good camera by all side
Jan 11, 2007Rating: 10 out of 10 (Perfect)
Pros: Everything is good except lcd
Cons: The lcd gets dirty by finger prints
Opinion:
Excellent Camera!!!
Dec 4, 2006Rating: 9 out of 10 (Spectacular)
Pros: Sleek, Stylish, Great Images, Steady Shot
Cons: Touch Screem is prone to fingerprints
Opinion:
Just bought the T-50 in as a part of sony's year end promotion with a free 512mb card, pouch & a bundeled free gps unit, the pics clicked are great even in low light when used with approriate settings, great pics even when moving the steady shot really works, good touch screen interface, nice big & bright lcd, good battery life. The only flaw would be that the touch screen makes the lcd prone to fingetprints. Well the perfect ultra compact camera in the market today.
