Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W110

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W110

Design

With its brushed black body that contrasts nicely against the metallic accent both on the border around the camera and on the circular frame around the lens, the DSC-W110 has a certain masculine aesthetic. To this end, Sony has denied it the colour options made available in its W-series comrades, which can be picked up in various hues, such as pink, red and gold. The DSC-W110 has instead been restricted to the tech staples of black and silver. The brushed finish on the DSC-W110 is welcome, as fingerprint marks and smudges do not show up on its surface.

Rather than being flush with the back of the camera, the DSC-W110's control buttons protrude out from its surface allowing bigger fingers to intuitively find them, although some may find them too small for their liking. The raised zoom rocker on the back of the camera is easy to use, while the ridged mode dial clicks through its options with a satisfying level of resistance. Rather than remaining flush with the camera's surface the LCD is also raised up.

Features
Scene modes are accessed by turning the ridged mode dial at the back of the camera. Each turn of the wheel displays the mode and a brief descriptor of its function to the right of the LCD — providing easy navigation around the camera for those who want a highly automated and guided digital camera experience. This description appears only briefly, acting as a useful prompt rather than an annoyance.

You can plug and play your photos straight from the DSC-W110 to your TV through the camera's slideshow option. There are five slideshow styles through which you can view your happy snaps, which can be accompanied by either eight underwhelming preloaded music clips or your own music onto the camera to accompany the show. As is Sony's wont there's proprietary which combines data transfer and AV functions. The port for which, incidentally, is left open and exposed to the elements.

As is to be expected on an entry-level camera, there's an absolute dearth of on-board editing features in the DSC-W110. Photos can be organised into folders and that is about it — don't expect the likes of red-eye reduction editing. Disappointingly for a cut-price camera you'll have to fork out extra dosh for a Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Pro or Memory Stick Pro Duo card.

On the plus side, the DSC-W110 has Sony's smile detection function, which allows the camera to automatically take pictures whenever a smiling face ventures across its path; sensitivity for which can be adjusted along a sliding scale. There's also face detection, that can be configured to preference adults or children, and sensitivity of up to ISO 3200. To assist beginners, the ISO menu gives you information on the available image sizes, such as VGA-sized pics being useful for small images intended as email attachments, and that a full-sized 7-megapixel image gives you the flexibility to create quality images of A3 dimensions.

Performance
The good image quality produced by this 7.2-megapixel compact, with its Carl Zeiss lens and 4x optical zoom, is let down slightly by the loss of clarity in the camera's 2.5-inch LCD. It's hard to enjoy the end product when setting them up properly is disturbed by the screen's tendency to motion blur. Some salvation comes in the camera's inclusion of an optical viewfinder, but this is relatively small and ungainly to use.

When it comes to viewing moving images through the LCD you'll find that you get a lot of motion blur. The lag is fairly significant, which could make life difficult when trying to set up shots on busy streetscapes, let alone trying to take advantage of the camera's quick shot time to capture action scenes such as sports.

Generally speaking the performance of the DSC-W110 is good for an entry-level unit. It is able to collect its first shot after start up within four seconds, without a flash you'll be able to get a shot every 0.8 second in burst mode. When taking shots manually with a flash you can gather an image every three seconds.

Conclusion
The DSC-W110 is a camera designed for ease of use and a low price point. If you're happy to have a point-and-shoot without much in the way of features, then this compact digital camera will point and shoot for you and then ... well ... point and shoot some more.