Sony Cyber-shot® DSC-W50 Digital Camera

Sony cameras score highly for ease of use and the DSC W50 is no exception. In fact if you use this camera in automatic (default) mode then there is nothing you need to do apart from load the battery, compose your photos and press the shutter button. When you do have to dip into the menu system I find the Sony menus very easy to come to terms with. You will find all the key controls such as zoom, flash and macro at your fingertips on the back of the camera.

In many ways this camera is just about as standard as you will find for a small digital camera. It has a typical rectangular shape with a shiny silver finish. Although there is nothing to really differentiate this camera from the hordes of other cameras available it has a simple, clean design nonetheless.

It will fit into just about any pocket with dimensions of 88.9 x 57.1 x 22.9mm. It weighs in at 127g.

A lithium ion battery (NP-BG1) is used to supply power to the camera. Sony supplies both a battery and charger with the DSC W50. Sony estimates you should be able to take around 300 shots before the battery needs to be recharged.

The camera comes with 32mb of storage built into it. Therefore a memory card is NOT supplied with the camera as standard. Although Sony are more generous than most with the amount of memory they build into a camera I was only able to take 15 photos before the memory was full. Therefore you will almost certainly need to buy a memory card to go with the camera. It is compatible with Memory Stick Duo cards. It is very important to ensure the memory stick you buy have Duo in its name as standard memory sticks are too large for this camera. Overall I like the Sony DSC W50. It takes good photos, is easy to use and is small enough to slip into a pocket. It is one of only a small number of pocket sized digital cameras to offer a viewfinder and it is also very competitively priced.