By Rich Trenholm, CNET.co.uk
26/06/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39005881,42600681p,00.htm

Our first impression of the the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W170 was that it's identical to its younger sibling, the W150. If it wasn't for the small engraving that reads "10.1 megapixels" on the front of the W170, we wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. Despite being initially underwhelmed, we found there was more to this snapper than meets the eye.

Design

The W170 comes in cherry red or silver with a brushed metal effect to the frame. It's quite plain on the front and back; there's a raised bezel around the screen and viewfinder giving the Sony a clunky appearance. The viewfinder is small and the screen distractingly stays on when using it, but it's clear and moves in and out with the zoom.

The controls are cluttered. The 2.7 inch, 230,000-dot LCD screen is large enough, but a thick black bezel pushes the controls too far over. There are at least two buttons too many: A dedicated slideshow-launching button that could have simply been an option in the playback menu and a Menu button that lets you access shooting options. The latter is handy, but its function could've been assigned to the OK button in the center of the clickpad that does nothing in normal shooting mode.

Meanwhile, there's no delete button--it's the first option in the playback menu, so there's an extra button push involved and it could initially fox anyone looking for the little trash bin icon. You do get a handy option to delete multiple selected images or all images taken on the same date, which is more subtle than a delete all option.

The flat zoom rocker lets down the long zoom. We can't stand flat rocker switches, especially when they're as small and unresponsive as this one. Despite the underwhelming physical controls, the menus are excellent. Options pop out from a sidebar, leaving room on the screen for simple captions to explain the feature and for the adjustment to be previewed onscreen.

Features

Along with the viewfinder, the W170 boasts a couple of features you wouldn't find on many compacts. It has a versatile 5x optical zoom lens with a satisfyingly wide 28mm focal length, equivalent to a 35mm film camera, although this is let down by the poor zoom rocker.

Face detection is included, continuing the trend for souped-up face-tracking features. Clever subject tracking follows a face as it moves around the frame, allowing you to recompose your images. There's also the option to prioritize children or adult faces. These options are all repeated for smiling faces so you can, for example, focus on smiling children. The shutter's sensitivity to smiles can be adjusted, although we have no idea why you'd want to.

Playback mode can then filter your saved images to display only those that feature faces, only those that feature children or adults or just those that feature smiling faces. We were skeptical, but for the most part these work, even tracking and filtering faces in profile or at awkward angles.

In Program mode, there are plenty of adjustments that can be made. It's possible to tweak the intensity of the flash to half intensity. Another clever flash option is a white balance preset specifically for when the flash is enabled. SteadyShot image stabilization can be kept on continuously or for when the shutter is pressed. It's hard to see much difference in everyday snapping, but we generally prefer the shutter option.

Performance

The burst mode in automatic will snap 100 shots in 1 minute before stopping. That kind of staying power is still frustratingly rare in compacts. The first 10 seconds are at 2.5 frames per second, which isn't bad at all, before slowing to a still creditable 2fps or so for the remainder of the minute.

Image Quality

Images are crisp. Portraits are warm and detailed. The wealth of easily tweakable options in Program mode gave us some excellent results, even in low light. Even the limited options of the automatic mode delivered some good results at the default settings, with the occasional exposure compensation tweak all that was necessary for decent results. The easy mode wasn't quite as capable, and while it's nice to have, we promise you'll be rewarded if you take the plunge into tweaking this surprisingly adaptable camera.

Noise performance was pretty good, thanks to the limiting of ISO speed in Program mode to ISO 400. There's some smearing from noise reduction, but it wasn't too obtrusive. Even the high ISO mode is less overzealous than many other compacts; it's nice to see a camera that knows its limitations. Purple fringing was barely in evidence and, all told, we were pleased with the quality of the W170's images.

We really weren't expecting much from the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W170 because of its unprepossessing looks, cluttered controls and the usual proprietary memory bugbear. But the graphical user interface is a joy and pictures aren't bad, either. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500 and the Casio Exilim EX-Z200 edge it on features and looks, but the W170 is still extremely adaptable.