After reading reviews and seeing the Sony Cybershot series I was convinced that after a long run as a Kodak supporter that moving to Sony would be the right move. I decided to go with the Sony Cybershot DSCT10. It was expensive. $399.99 doesn't seem like too much but when you consider the median price of digital cameras these days paired with the fact that I'm just a point-and-shooter, it was a little more than I wanted to spend. However, I figured it was worth it for something that was a little nice.
I elected to get the 4-year throw-it-down-the-stairs-and-get-a-new-camera plan and a memory stick which brought the price to $589.19 with tax, way more than I wanted to spend. Again, I figured it was worth it for a solid investment.
Three months into ownership I have solidly decided that this camera sucks. It's subpar in comparison to the four year old Kodak EasyShare DX7440 it was replacing. I would not expect such lackluster performance from a $199.99 camera let alone a camera twice the cost!
Here's a little rundown of some of the things that suck the most about it.
- Redeye
I don't expect a $400 camera get me a Pulitzer nod but it would be cool if once, just once, it could manage to take a picture that did not have redeye. You don't even have to have a person in the shot to have a pair of glowing orbs pop up in the center of the picture. - Blurry Pictures
One of the things that attracted me to this camera the most was its image stabilization feature. That turned out to be a crock of steaming crap. You could put this camera on a tripod in the middle of field on a sunny day at noon and you'd probably have a streaky, blurry image. - Holy Flash!
The flash on this camera is so bright that it overexposes every picture it takes. Every picture we took at Christmas looks like our family is a collection of ghosts speedily crossing in front of the camera. Furthermore, there's a constant battle between the blurriness you get without flash to the overexposure with it. You usually have to take six pictures of everything before you can find one you like. If you take a picture of the Christmas tree with the flash it's so bright you can't even tell there are lights on the tree. If you take it without the flash it's so blurry it looks like people are shooting colored silly string across the room. - Picture Rotation
Our old camera had a simple feature that we grew to love, expect and completely take for granted. When you tilted the camera on its side it detected this and when you took a picture it showed it in the camera's display and when transferred on the computer rotated with the right side up. This camera goes back to the features I had on my camera in 2000 by not rotating the pictures properly so when you scroll through pictures you are forced to have to tilt your head to view them all. - It's Too Damn Small
I'm all for compact gadgets but this camera is just too small. The flippy thing to expose the lens and turn the camera on is cool but with a size a little larger than an average credit card I find it so small it's almost impossible not to drop. This isn't a fatal flaw in its design, more likely personal preference of mine.
Needless to say this will be my last Sony camera purchase. I just switched back to a Kodak EasyShare with the V610. It's half the price but has all the features I've grown used to and, quite frankly, takes much better pictures.
I'm by no means a camera nerd. I simply like to point my camera at things and take pictures that come out in a non-blurry state. If you're looking for the same in your camera I'd highly recommend steering clear of the Sony Cybershot DSCT10.