By Leonard Goh
03/09/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39005881,43978454p,00.htm

Sony's latest Cyber-shot offering, the DSC-T500, is certainly keeping up with recent compact camera trends by incorporating HD-quality (1,280 x 720-pixel) movie capture. Sweetening this deal further is the integrated stereo audio recording, a feature found only on one other shooter to date, the Samsung NV24HD. Sony is targeting the T500 at hip, young, working adults, but our guess is that HD video capture will probably appeal more to the tech-savvy crowd. However, image quality left much to be desired, especially after seeing what the Cyber-shot DSC-T77 can deliver.

Design

The exterior of the Cyber-shot DSC-T500 looks typical of Sony's T-series shooters. There's the front sliding cover, clean button layout on the top, and as with its touchscreen-enabled point-and-shoots, the rear is clutter-free. However, we found some clever modifications made to this snapper.

To allow users to change between shooting and video capture mode easily, Sony has implemented a switch around the shutter button which makes toggling between modes really simple. Surrounding this switch is the zoom collar which is positioned where our forefinger had easy access to.

Despite all these features which appear to make one-handed operation an intuitive task, we had to use our other hand to navigate the menus and change settings because the icons are scattered on both sides of the screen. This is not so much of a problem as a matter of personal preference.

Unlike the typical T-series shooters, we would not consider the T500 slim and light. Rather, it feels relatively substantial in our hands. The heft and weight are something we noticed immediately when we picked up the shooter, but since its target audience is the more tech-savvy crowd, we guess they wouldn't mind the slight bulk.

Features

The 10.1-megapixel T500 is Sony's venture into HD-quality video capture on a point-and-shoot. So naturally, this was one of the aspects we tested heavily on. The clip we recorded under daylight was pretty detailed and we were quite impressed. But as with most conventional compact shooters, we noticed there was a fair bit of noise dotting the clip in low-light conditions.

Audio-wise, the T500 supports stereo recording. The sonic pickup was one of the best we had tested in a point-and-shoot, and we could really hear the different sounds captured on both channels. To spice it up, the speaker on the Sony also provides stereo playback. It was certainly loud enough that playing it on the bus raised a few eyebrows.

Unlike other HD video capture-enabled snappers which record in AVI format, Sony has opted for MPEG-4 instead. A 35-second recording on the T500 chalked up about 42MB which we found to be small, compared to the 30-second, 100MB clip on Samsung's NV24HD.

While recording clips, it was nice that we were able to zoom in and out, but the shooter didn't focus on several instances when we zoomed in on our subject. But we liked how the T500 was able to snap high-resolution still images while recording video.

The rear estate is taken up mostly by a 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD. We found its response to be acceptable. We think this is because the icons are larger and makes for more accurate tapping. For more precise focusing on off-center subjects, we just had to tap on the screen and a box would appear to indicate the shooter's focus.

One feature we were amazed at is the 5x optical zoom that the T500 provides without protruding the lens. However, it lacks a wide-angle lens. If not it will be pitting against the NV24HD which has 24mm ultra-wide-angle optics. We also noted that an optical image stabilizer is used on the Sony rather than sensor-shift IS which the company has always employed in its point-and-shoots. This worked equally well, and we didn't detect any difference between the two IS systems.

For slightly more advanced users, adjustments to the flash output, color mode and exposure compensation can be made to achieve different looks and feels for the snaps.

An exclusion that Sony has made for this point-and-shoot would be the BIONZ image-processing engine. We found this to be rather odd because the company has always included this in its digital cameras, and we speculate that it could be due to the HD movie-recording function that requires a different chip for it to operate smoothly. With the lack of the BIONZ engine, the D-Range Optimizer feature has been removed, too. We will look at how this affects the image quality in the later part of the review.

There is 50MB of onboard memory in the T500, and you can buff it up with a Memory Stick PRO Duo flash card if you want to snap more shots or record longer video clips. A lithium-ion battery provides power to operate the point-and-shoot.

Performance

The timings that the T500 clocked in our tests were typical of how other point-and-shoots perform. Startup time was a hair less than 2 seconds, while shutter lag measured approximately 0.1 second. The time-to-first-shot was inconsistent though, because it tended to focus faster when faced with a landscape scene than with macro subjects. However, most compact point-and-shoots have the same problem.

For trigger-happy folks, the rated battery life of 180 shots may be a deal-breaker. In our tests, we managed to take about 100 shots, several HD movie clips and lots of tinkering around with the touchscreen before the battery went flat. This means the T500 may not really be suitable for holiday goers as the battery could be drained before the day is over.

Image Quality

Earlier on, we mentioned about Sony not having the BIONZ image-processing engine and D-Range Optimizer in the T500. It appears that without these two components, the image quality did suffer slightly. We did a quick comparison with some images taken with the Cyber-shot DSC-T77, and found the quality of pictures captured at ISO 400 favored the latter. Not only were more details retained, the noise-suppression algorithm was more efficient in cleaning up the image, too. For the T500, the picture was a tad too gritty for our liking, and details in certain areas were smeared.

However, the quality of pictures taken at ISO 80 to 200 was still acceptable. Noise reduction handled well, although it was clear that at ISO 200, details were smeared. At ISO 800, the images were not very sharp and, needless to say, at ISO 1,600 and 3,200, we could barely make out words in the test chart.

Another noteworthy point would be that the T500 tended to produce saturated colors, which in some cases appeared a bit unnatural. Also, there were tendencies to underexpose the picture but that was easily solved by manually compensating the exposure.

We liked how we could manipulate the flash output to achieve more natural-looking skin tones in portraits. In most cases, night portraits were nicely lit and backgrounds were exposed for, too.

Conclusion

Although the T500 has a swanky HD video-recording function, it seems the lack of the BIONZ engine has an impact on the image quaity. But a redeeming factor for the shooter would be the large 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD and the onboard stereo microphone and speaker. It didn't make us an instant Spielberg, but we really like how the recordings showed more details and the stereo playback adds extra punch to the clip. Would we pay S$799 for this point-and-shoot? Well, we have to admit there are better options out there, such as the NV24HD which comes with an ultra-wide-angle lens that we really fancy. But if you like the looks and style of the T500 and don't mind taking pictures at only low ISO settings, the little premium should be worth it.