Another Sony hero... (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P71)

Member Name: robert_p

Product:	Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P71
Date:	18/05/02 (863 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High quality pictures, Ease of use, Strong build

Disadvantages: No DC Power Supply in box

I don't know what's happening....

Recently, many of my purchases have been Sony devices.

It started with the Playstation, then the TV, a Sony radio seperate followed soon after. Then, the inevitable happened. They released the PS2. That was soon followed by a Clie 770C and now, a P71 camera.

To be honest, I think part of my buying decision must have been psycological. You see, I didn't realise that I owned so many Sony products! They just look good and do the job that they were designed to do. And very well it seems.

I was browsing in a high street store and thought about the up-coming holiday. The guys at work all have amazing pictures from digital cameras, and to be honest, I was feeling left out!

A helpful chap (who actually knew what he was talking about) showed me through the models. Canon Ixus (nice and small), Fuji (small, abit pricey, best magazine reviews), Kodak (bulky designs) and somewhere amongst them, the Sony.

I found it the easiest of all to use, light, high quality build and a good price for a 3 Mega-pixel camera.

The Sony it had to be. Thinking about my purchase on the way back from the shops, I remembered that it came with a 32Mb Memory Stick. Hmmmm, I already have a 128Mb MS with my Clie (see seperate review!). So I took some pictures, popped the MS into the Clie and hey presto! Perfect pictures!

The USB interface provides adequate upload speed to a PC (<1 min for a full 32Mb MS).

The lens on the P71 has an automatic lens cover, something I really wanted after having bought a video camera without one.

The battery life has been OK so far, although I'd be tempted to buy a spare set for use in anger with a 128Mb Memory Stick.

Image quality is superb. Whether 3MPixels is THAT much better than 2MPixels is debatable, but the colour contrast and brightness/sharpness of picture quality are impressive.

I'm no professional phot
ographer, however the auto-everything mode takes pictures which put my previous efforts to shame. I've started to experiment with the manual modes, of which there are plenty. Perhaps this years holiday snaps will be more 'artistic'?

The only downsides I can think of are:-

Anyone who dislikes Memory Sticks will choose something else anyway.

Extreme use of the LCD and Flash can drain the batteries quickly.

To sum up:-

This seems to be another Sony product that is stylish, and does its job well.

Summary: