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For a 5megapixel camera it is tiny at 9x6x2cm and it weighs in at close to 150grams and this with the Lithium battery and 32MB Media Stick Duo inserted. There is no conventional viewfinder but the massive 5x4cm TFT display frames shots well even in sunlight.

The front has the Carl Zeiss 3x optical lens (6.7-20.1 35mm equivalent) and the flash. The base has a cover for the solid battery and the 32MB Memory Stick Duo card. The right side has the wrist strap anchor point and three position slider for movie/still/replay. Top of the unit has power button and LED as well as shutter button. The rear is dominated by the huge 5x4 TFT but to the right of this are seven buttons (all clearly detailed in the comprehensive manual) and the wide angle/telephoto rocker button. That is a lot of items in a small package but in no way does it seem crowded and nor are you likely to press the wrong one in proximity problems.

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No sooner have I looked at a camera that can take movie images at 640x480 than another comes alone this little Sony offering can take movies at 640x480 at both 30 and 16 frames per second as well as 160x112 at 16fps. Remarkably good moving images for what is basically a stills camera.

With six different image sizes (two compression rates per size) this gives 12 different rates to use up the space and content per image can vary wildly making minimum and maximum images almost impossible to state. In the top mode 2592x1944 you may get 12 images while at 640x480 the smallest size you could get 500.

As an Auto use camera a novice could easily pull it out of his/her pocket, open the shutter frame the image and shoot, the images will be quite acceptable. For an intermediate user there are a choice of six white balance types, six different focus types, four different flash modes – if you count no flash as one – and two different flash types.

This is certainly a camera that slips easily into a pocket and as such is almost instantly available. I have taken images only two seconds after lowering the cover over the lens (this automatically turns the unit on) using point and shoot quite successfully.

My preference is always to use a viewfinder and this unit has not got one, but with such a large TFT this is not a great problem, in all but the brightest sunlight a perfectly acceptable image shows on the TFT. The normal half press on the shutter works wonders in low light with pre flash showing and allowing fine positioning on what may almost appear a black image. There should no problem printing images at A4 or even larger though I doubt you could be happy with A3, you could probably get A4 from a partial image or digital enhancement from same.

Images can be transferred by the removal of the Memory Stick Duo and placing it in a card reader or by plugging the camera into the supplied docking station and connecting this via USB lead to a PC, charging can also be carried out in this manner through the docking station and as this also has AV out (cable supplied) the cameras contents can be viewed this way. Pixmania have it for £287.

Links

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/36122/art/sony/cybershot-dsc-t1.html
http://products.sony.co.uk/productdetail.asp?id=8_60_5676