Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W50 Digital Camera

I've been a DSC-T1 owner for about 2.5 years now I guess, and I've had a chance to run the DSC-W50 through its paces and see how they stack up. The DSC-T1 broke new ground with its deck-of-cards form factor, and, I must say, despite my aging Nikon Coolpix 995's vastly superior indoor flash capability, the DSC-T1 has become the weapon of choice -- they say the best camera is the ONE YOU HAVE WITH YOU and I guess that's true! My Sony Digital-8 camcorder has collected dust since the DSC-T1 came along.

Blah blah DSC-T1, we're talking about the DSC-W50. The good news is, the $500 5-mpixel deck-of-cards size camera is now functionally duplicated by a 6-mpixel $230 camera. Same movie recording, better resolution, better low-light, better flash, tripod mount, ... I don't think the formerly high-end DSC-T1 has a single thing up on the DSC-W50. The DSC-T1 has carried on all the way to the current DSC-T9 but I see little REAL change to differentiate the price tags. OK, so the Carl Zeiss "periscope" internal is the "Prince Albert" of camera zoom lenses.. whooppee! Nobody cares if the lense zooms without popping out of the camera so long as the powered-off-and-shoved-in-your-pocket size is the same. The DSC-W50, at $230 local retailer on sale with a free-after-rebate Epson R220 printer ($100 value, mainly for the $78 worth of ink), duplicates the powered-off form factor of its $500 DSC-T1 predecessor.

The primary difference between the -TXX and -WXX line of Sony cameras is the type of Zeiss lenses they use -- the -TXX using the periscope style, the -WXX using the conventional telescoping zoom. The real deal, though, is that, powered-off, they're BOTH THE SAME SIZE, give or take a millimeter. The -W50 is more millimeters narrower than the -T1 than it is millimeters thicker than the -T1. We're talking maybe 1-2 mm thicker, 'taint much, people!

Let me detail what Sony appears to have fixed from the early days... the DSC-T1 had a weak flash - subjects indoors more than 3 feet had better stand still while taking the picture, lest the blur ruin the picture. The DSC-T1 lacked a tripod mount -- see #1, because ALL pictures made indoors are "moving" in a relative sense, because your hands are going to move more than a pixel or so even when you're as steady as humanly possible recording a stationary object -- think flashless pictures at an art museum.... high ISO ratings are a good thing.

A quick recap of the DSC-W50 versus the DSC-T1:
-flash seems brighter, indoor motion blur vastly improved
-standard tripod mount - DSC-T1 lacked this!
-32MB internal memory, managed 13 shots at full resolution. After reviewing the menus, I don't even know if you can select sub-6 Mpixel resolution. Even without Memory Stick Pro Duo, you can take pictures. Cool.
-Battery compartment has a retention tab now. The DSC-T1's battery would merrily plummet to the floor and explode with 10 megatons--- oh, excuse me, I'm exaggerating... well, let's just say you could very easily bust a $60 battery by trying to swap out the memory stick duo. The DSC-W50 has this SHWEEEEET little blue spring tab that keeps the battery from falling out when you go to pull out the memory stick duo. The -W50's battery also is 50% larger capacity than the -T1's and retails for $10 less ($50) at Sony's website.

-Same MPEGMovieVX as the DSC-T1, with audio. Video quality is near-camcorder level when using the Memory Stick Pro Duo (non-Pro can't record the high resolution mode). The frame rate does appear to vary if a lot of motion is present, so it isn't quite as good as a camcorder but it generally is not a severe problem. Normal mode is stated to be 16fps.

-Lense zoom uses the more standard ring-around-the-shutter-button placement common with other cameras.

-mode wheel has all of 10 settings. normally I'd say good luck remembering what each icon means, but Sony duplicates the wheel on-screen with a sentence of text explaining what the mode does. KEWL D00DZ! Normally the iconographs leave you trying to figure out "the world is mauve" or some bizarre color scheme -- I think the user-friendliness went up quite a bit there.

The lense is also very responsive, popping out of the camera in under a second or so. The camera thickness essentialy doubles or triples in this mode, but, like I said, WHO CARES? It's the power-off state that matters when you carry the camera with you.

Update: some features I forgot to mention: this camera has an optical viewfinder in addition to the large 2.5" display, a welcome addition for framing outdoor shots where the sun might make the display harder to see. The display is the same size as the DSC-T1's, though the screen cover might give you the impression it is larger. The cover seems to improve the contrast over the -T1 and provide extra protection. The screen is essentially as big as the camera with just enough room left for a few buttons and is really the showcase feature of the -Txx and -Wxx product lines.

The presets wheel on the camera includes features catering to low-light shooting and other special situations. Low light was something the -T1 did not excel at. Low light mode extends to ISO 1000. With flash, ISO 1000 mode extends range to 24 feet.

Memory Stick Pro Duo's are available up to 2GB, which gives up to 24 minutes of video, probably 600 photos at highest resolution.