Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W200 review

We couldn't have asked for a better example of the evils of sensor-resolution specmanship than Sony's 12- megapixel Cyber-shot DSC-W200. This top-of-the-food- chain addition to the otherwise sensible W series -- not exactly budget cameras, but reasonably priced compact models with the occasional amateur-friendly feature -- shares the attractive, compact design and midrange feature set of models like the W80 and W90, although Sony doesn't offer a black alternative.

Design
There's little to complain about with the 140g camera's design. There's no dedicated area to rest your thumb, which we thought would pose a problem, but the slightly indented mode dial fulfills this purpose without incident. The buttons are rather small, but manageable.

We expected more from the 64mm (2.5-inch) LCD. It's the same coarse, 115,000-pixel model we see in cameras half the price, with poor off-angle viewing. It's almost impossible to view in bright light, and the Brightness Up setting is practically indistinguishable from its standard state. There's a surprisingly large, if somewhat distorted, optical viewfinder to supplement the LCD, however. The narrow f/2.8-5.5 35mm-105mm equivalent 3x zoom lens is also rather limiting.

Features
The W200's feature set supplies the capabilities we expect from a premium-priced snapshot camera. Among them you'll find Sony's Super SteadyShot optical image stabilisation, 9-point autofocus, and face detection. Here, Sony makes some odd choices. For example, you can only enable face detection in full Auto mode -- it's not even available in Program mode. Also, the W200 provides a Manual exposure mode -- a fairly limited one, in which you can select from only two or three aperture settings, depending upon zoom, but manual nonetheless -- without providing a shutter-priority choice.

As we've seen in other Sony models, the W200's face detection works pretty well, recognising multiple faces in a scene -- as long as it can see both eyes. It tends to be inconsistent, however -- in a three-headed test setup, it would usually choose one, sometimes three, occasionally two faces, and a couple of times none, all under identical conditions.

Performance
The model fares moderately well on shooting speed. From power-on to first shot takes a zippy 1.6 seconds, and in high-contrast light it snaps photos in a reasonable half-second. In dim light, under harder-to-focus conditions, it takes a so-so 1.3 seconds. Unfortunately, the W200's typical shot-to-shot time is a sluggish 2.2 seconds, and when you enable flash, that almost doubles to a seriously shot-impairing 4.4 seconds. Its 2fps continuous-shooting rate compares better to its rivals, though.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate faster performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

Casio Exilim EX-Z1050

1.8 

1.6 

0.4 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W200

2.2 

1.6 

0.5 

Canon PowerShot A710 IS

1.8 

1.8 

0.6 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W80

1.2 

1.8 

0.6 

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2

2.2 

2.3 

0.7 

Nikon Coolpix P5000

3 

2 

0.9