Full Review

Boy, someone's going to have your behind for this review.
Well sometimes you do things because you love someone. Sometimes you do things because you want them to know the truth. And sometimes you do things because you're pretty sure they don't look on the internet and even if they did, you'd be able to get a good five-minute head start down the interstate so they wouldn't kill you.

I think you're just on an angry writing spree right now.
Well maybe I'm just irritated that just about everything that I've spent my hard-earned moola on (that happens to be available for review on epinions) turns out to be crap! I only want crap when I go up to a shopkeeper and say "I'll take four pounds of crap, but put it in a three pound bag." At least then I know I'm procuring crap.

Well tell us a little bit about the shiny picture-making crap you acquired so this review isn't just you talking about poo in bags.
Fine. The Sony Cybershot DSC-W90 is a 8.1 Megapixel (for those not in the know, that's more than most people will ever need) with a sleek body and lots of buttons to push on it.

F**k yeah, buttons!
I know! These buttons provide features like facial detection and recognition, red-eye reduction (always good to have in-camera editing functions if you're akin to Conan the Camera Basher like myself) as well as more shooting settings than the average person needs. Everything from panoramic, low light, scenic, outdoor or indoor specific and the now-standard movie settings. There's pretty much a shooting function for any situation. If you want to take pictures of dinosaurs while punting small children around your living room, there's a function for that too.

I like how you manage to sneak your hatred for small children and your love for reptiles into most of your reviews.
I feel that it adds dimension and personal credibility into my musings. I mean, come on - dinosaurs!

But you were saying...?
After the initial 'oooo buttons' stage of my camera fancy (which mostly involved me trashing the instruction manual and mashing things until assorted stuff happened to my liking), I decided to test the camera out. Out-of-the-box, on Auto function, the camera produced crisp, clear and quality pictures. At first.

At first?
While the camera didn't come with a memory card (It takes SD media), they run about $20 for 1GB these days and aren't a huge burden on the wallet. And after snapping 1GB of assorted pictures that no one but myself could appreciate, I rifled through the box to see what else it came with. The USB cable and the provided software, when set up, allowed the camera to appear on the computer as a separate hard drive, meaning you could just drag and drop pictures where you liked.

And when you're done with that, the battery pack inside (Lithium Ion G) can be popped out and inserted into the provided AC wall charger, which itself is compact and novel. So if you decided you'd like to buy a second battery, you don't have to plug up the entire camera (taking it out of commission for the duration of the charge) and can instead shoot pictures of dinosaurs and well, more dinosaurs until your fingers fall off.

...despite the fact that the computer automatically detected the camera and allowed you to transfer it automatically.
Are you questioning the motives of the Magical Monkey Computer?

Well I---
Magical Monkey Computer exists on a mental space far beyond the scope of the universe. Do not challenge Magical Monkey Computer. Do not assume Magical Monkey Computer shares the facilities of lowlier computers.

Right.
But anyway - Monkey took pictures, Monkey uploaded pictures, Monkey took more pictures, monkey uploaded more pictures...

Monkey wondered where that growing gut came from that magically appeared in all his photos...
Hush up.

But getting back to the "At First" comment you made earlier.
The camera sat unused for a while. A couple of months. Turns out I had better things to do.

More like you didn't want to be photographed mid-debauchery or you'd be facing jail time, at best.
Like I said, better things to do. But after picking up the camera again to provide photographic documentation of a wedding that was not mine, the camera had taken on a life of its own.

Bigfoot?
One in three pictures taken in various light settings and various shooting turned out resembling Jackson Pollack's laundry. Sure, there's people in there somewhere, but it takes a trained eye and a slight case of vertigo to see them.

At first, I blamed my inability to take photos...

...Which you well should have.
...But then realized "By crap, I'm Spookymonkey! There isn't anything I can't do!" and promptly blamed the camera. Surely I was not to blame for this. I switched up shooting functions, mucked around with the ISO, stood on one foot, drank less, drank more, stopped shaking the camera like an epileptic martini and lo and behold! - about a third of the pictures failed to look like what I'd intended. The bride and groom looked like Salvador Dali got a hold of the negatives. My face had vapor trails!

That's cool.
Ordinarily yes. But to realize that my face does not, indeed, have vapor trails but merely appear that way is crushing to one's ego. I can't deal with that sort of thing. For every two photos that I'd taken that came out looking like the cover of Bride and Stuff magazine, I'd produce one that felt more like an Etch-a-sketch than an 8-megapixel camera photograph.

No where in this review does it mention that you left the camera in the glove box of your car in the middle of a 90-degree summer for three months, which, as is printed in the manual, is a foolish thing to do and not recommended.
If technology is not made to stand the physical duress that I inflict on it, bugger it royally. If I'm dropping a car payment worth of cash on a photography tool that produces results that I could duplicate with a piece of paper and a copious amount of boogers, then I am not mistaken in feeling gypped.

So you put all other cameras through this treatment?
Yes. And that is why I'm upset. I've thrown cameras at people's skulls to have them function for a solid four years. Then I lose them. I've stepped on, sat on, kicked, disassembled, allowed to be sort of eaten by a dog and even lent to a friend of ill repute and still had cameras function before I lose them. And these cameras cost me under $200. For higher money, I expect that camera to all but bring me a damned sandwich after I develop the film and then compliment me on my chiseled jawline.

No one makes cameras that lie, Monkey.
Perhaps that is the issue with this camera. Perhaps I am just too beautiful for pixels. The camera, sensing my awesomeness in JPEG form, had to blur me so that mere mortals could stand to see my image.

Or that could be complete bollocks and you just suck at using cameras.
Either way, I feel cheated. It's compact, simple to use, has a plethora of useful and entirely pointless but still cool to have functions, can be manipulated by most imbeciles and (provided the quality lasts) produces clear pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Provided you don't leave them in glove boxes.
I'm taking no responsibility for this. This camera is best suited for people who plan on visiting the arctic tundra and mountainous realm of Sasquatch and don't want a real good look at it. Or proof so friends will believe you. Or friends.