Full Review

I got this camera spending 40000 points on my Sony card, which should be equivalent to 400 dollars. I got it about 8 months ago, so now the price should be significantly cheaper.

When I got it first time, my impression was this "giant" camera better take a good picture. So I took couple shots, and couple videos, and they are amazingly clear. The SuperSteadyShot (SSS) alone is enough to pay some premium for this camera. There is no ghosting while moving and it actually tells you when the SSS can compensate your movement or not. For example, when you are at the maximum zoom, you can't expect the SSS to aid you much, because it can't get enough pictures around your current view to compensate the camera movement. There is an icon on the display indicating this. Of course you can turn off SSS manually if you want the effect in your picture.

I took this camera to Getty Museum in L.A. and took quite a few amazing pictures, either normal, zoom, or in macro mode. Changing between the modes is very simple. Setting timer and flash / no-flash setting is also very simple since Sony dedicates all these features in the camera buttons, not hidden somewhere in the menu structure. Also they have a dedicated "delete picture" button! Very handy.

Moving on to video, the quality is also excellent. The factory color setting wise, I like Nikon better, but the quality of the movie both video and audio is great! Make sure you have a big SD card or you will run out of space very quickly. The MPG for 5 minutes video 640x480 is 100MB.

The problem with this camera is just its sheer dimension. If you are going to parties, etc, it's hard to be inconspicuous. It's even harder to bring this when you are hiking.