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Love it!

I originally bought a Sony DSC-S950, for around half the price of this camera, but I returned it the same day due to a faulty flash bulb. I decided to upgrade to the W290, because I wasn’t very happy with the S950 - it felt cheap, and lacked features.

I’ve put together this list of pros and cons of this camera. Don’t let the seemingly long list of cons scare you though, as they are all quite minor and not even important enough for me to rate this camera anything less than 5 stars. I just felt it was necessary to list everything I could think of. Sorry, I couldn’t properly review the HD Video capability, because I don’t have the HD cables (see below), and my computer seems to be too slow to properly play back HD video.

Pros:

-BRILLIANT colors! I am very very impressed with the colors in my shots, especially when shooting outdoor scenery shots (which is primarily what I purchased this camera for).

-Night-time shots using a tripod turn out very well also, giving as much detail as one could see with their naked eye.

-Smile shutter, as mentioned in previous reviews, works flawlessly. One thing that doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere, is that when it’s in Smile Shutter mode, it will continue to snap photos automatically as long as it keeps detecting smiles, which is very cool. So if you are taking a group picture, and you’re one of those people that likes taking 3 shots of the same thing “just in case”, just keep on smiling and the camera will take care of that for you.

-there’s a 3-shot burst mode, where it automatically takes 3 pictures when you click the button: one with your default EV, one at -1EV, and one at +1EV (or different intervals even, if you choose). That once-in-a-lifetime shot you take will have 3 different versions automatically, and you can choose the one you like the most and delete the rest later.

-The Intelligent Auto mode works fantastically, it takes a lot of the stress out of taken urgent pictures. The only time I ever don’t use it is when I have plenty of time to plan for a shot.

-Startup time is great! I’ve seen other complaints from people that say this camera takes too long to startup and be ready to use, but those people must be the most impatient people ever, because this thing is faster than any other camera I’ve owned, digital or otherwise. When you click the power button, the lens fires out lightning fast and the screen immediately displays the picture and is ready for action. Probably takes about 0.5 seconds from pushing the button to being ready to use.

Cons:

-Plastic cover on LCD screen protrudes from the camera body, making it more easily scratched. I would recommend getting some screen protectors, as I’m about to do.

-the jack for the all-in-one cable is on the bottom of the camera, which will be great once a dock is available, but in the meantime it’s a very inconvenient place to plug in the cable. It forces you to lay to camera on either the lens side, or the LCD side (which, as mentioned above, is designed in such a way that it could be scratched quite easily without a screen protector)

-Doesn’t come with HD video cables, only the typical yellow/red/white RCA analogue cables. Seeing as how this camera records HD video, it would be nice to be able to play it back in HD on my tv without burning it to a DVD first. You can buy the HD cables from sony if you really need them, though.

-Comes with an NP-BG1 battery, which disables the camera’s ability to show you the remaining minutes. You have to buy the optional NP-FG1 battery to see that. That’s the only difference, both batteries have the same capacity. It was obviously designed that way to force us to buy a second battery… but that was fine with me, since I planned on buying one anyways.

I would definitely recommend this camera to anyone looking for a great quality point-and-shoot digital camera!

Update (2/5/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen. I also found some auctions for this item here.

The featured review for this product, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W290 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom and Super Steady Shot Image Stabilization Silver Electronics, was written by Corey Scott.

The average rating for this item is 4.7 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.