Lots of features in a super slim package! Great stills, good video, nice!
First reaction to this camera - it's REALLY thin, maybe too thin... then you realize how convenient it is to stick in a pocket - the next thing you know, you'll be taking it everywhere! Considering how powerful this little camera is, Sony really crammed a lot of capability into a very small package.
This is a relatively "late" release camera, using the 16.2 MPixel sensor in most of the Sony 2011 releases, but tweaked a bit more. Still performance definitely is excellent, with some added custom presets like miniature, toy camera and subtractive color (where only one color shows, and the rest is Black and White) - features ONLY previously available on Sony professional ALPHA cameras. Lots of fun to play with, and the stills from this camera are quite good all around.
1080/60i (why not 60p? I dunno...) video is great, although a bit noisier in low light than the TX100V (which is VERY clean in low light conditions), looks great in decent light. For the most part, no need to have a dedicated video camera anymore, unless you really are fanatical about video quality or need the features of higher end video cameras...
The biggest "new" thing is this camera is the first time Sony worked some magic so that a compact Point and Shoot camera has not only the 5x optical zoom, but it also has what is best described as a lossless digital doubler, giving this super small camera the equivalent of a 10x zoom without noticeable image degradation - and it works quite well - you can also tell it to use digital zoom, and get up to 20x, but you'll see image quality start to degrade past about 15x - still, for a small camera, you get a lot of usable zoom range, which is why I wanted to test this camera, and it hasn't disappointed! I've found it adds nicely to the capabilities of the similar (but thicker) compact TX100V. The front sliding cover is also "just right" tension wise, feeling better overall than some of the other TX series I've owned. The OLED screen is very crisp and clean as displays go, the touchscreen is fairly responsive, although I've found triggering the "movie" mode and stopping recording to be a bit touchier than I'd like, and there's no "hard" button for starting movies - so you have to be a bit careful when recording movies. Not a big deal, but since this camera takes great full HD video, you'll probably be using it... and it takes some getting used to. Touchscreen interfaces are always something you either love or hate, and take a bit of adjusting to! The ability to track focus by touching the screen is worth it by itself, so I like touchscreens on cameras...
Things you may want to know... this camera is so thin, it won't take "normal" memory cards - you've got to use MICRO SDHC or Memory sticks... so you probably will have to get a memory stick especially for this camera, but they are the same ones you might use in your cell phone, fairly easy to find and cheap. Just don't expect to put a regular size SDHC card in this...
The other oddity is that the tripod mount must use a little (included) adapter - again, because the camera is super thin, there's not enough thickness for a normal 1/4"-20 socket. You probably will be handheld most of the time anyway, but if you need to mount on a tripod or other rig... you need the adapter!
Overall, a very handy little camera for pocket or purse or whenever you don't want to drag a big camera around, with enough features and capabilities for creativity!Read full review
