Sony DSCW800 Digital Compact Camera (20.1 MP, 5x Optical Zoom) - Silver

First, a bit of context. I am a Sony loyalist when it comes to point and shoots. My previous camera was the W530 14.1 MP Cybershot with a Carl Zeiss lense, and for the price I got it for, nothing came near it. My only reason for replacing it was that over the course of a few years the software on it had become glitchy, so it kept uncontrollably switching between focus modes. The photographs it could produce, especially in good light, were sensational for a camera of its time and class. So my next point and shoot had quite a job on its hands.The WX350 was acquired in the Black Friday deals, having already been cheaper than my old camera so that was a good start. It is quite fast on start up but not the quickest, taking around 2 seconds to get from off to photo-ready. The wheel for the shooting modes is nice and intuitive, and doesn't easily rotate on its own in the pocket. If you rotate it once the camera is active, you will be taken to a menu to fine tune your options. The menus are easy to navigate and comprehensive.The optical zoom is the most powerful I have come across for this camera type, and the resolution of daytime / well-lit images is superb. The biggest improvement on my old camera is the video mode; the HD resolution is a big step up, as is the sound capture. Other nice modes include handheld twighlight for shooting dim scenes without a tripod - it won't produce the highest quality images for print and display but it will capture memories and moments nicely and easily, and will be detected for use in the generally decent intelligent auto modes.Like all point and shoots, it isn't all plain sailing. The camera I have now is a replacement - the first one suffered after a few months of use probably as a result of me trying to do rapid snaps; turning the camera on and off too often too quickly. My advice would be to let the photo load after snapping and disappear before turning the camera off. The replacement has had no issues, and was organised efficiently by Amazon.The camera suffers from that old Sony fault of defaulting to macro in the auto mode for no apparent reason on rare occasions; this is corrected by aiming at backlighting, not difficult to address by not ideal. The back screen needs to be viewed from more or less dead on to get a good handle on the image captured - for me this is a very minor gripe. Far more problematic is the lack of shutter speed control; the camera does all the work. The camera generally does a good job but there are times when it would be handy to experiment.The truth is that no point and shoot is perfect. This camera however is very good for its class, and superb value at the price. I would not hesitate to buy it, and am happy to recommend it.

Being a bit of a gadget fetishist I have owned way too many compact cameras in my time. Of all of them this is the best small compact camera that I have tried.The real selling point of this camera is it's size and weight. It is a truly compact camera and even for it's diminutive size it is very light. Packed into this small camera is a long zoom lens and a host of features. However, this would all count for nothing if it didn't deliver in terms of picture quality. Overall, considering the type of camera and it's price the image quality is very good indeed.This is primarily a great camera for outdoor use. Its size and weight make it incredibly portable and the image quality in bright light is very good. To top it off it is easy to use (the auto modes generally do very well) and fast in operation. The quality is good from wide angle to full telephoto and that zoom lens really does reach a long way. Battery life seems pretty good and I really liked that I could charge the bettery in the camera using a standard phone charger. This meant that I could charge it from a cigarette lighter in the car on days out.You do need to bear in mind the weak points of a camera such as this. Personally, I do not mark the camera down because of these issues as they are inherent in the type of camera. For a very small, long zoom camera I have not found anything better. Firstly, this camera has a small sensor (although typical or compacts) combined with a rather "slow" lens (again this is typical of compacts). Slow in this context refers to how much light it lets through not how fast it focusses. Essentially what this means is that the results you get will deteriorate rapidly as the available light levels fall. Indoor photos without the flash for example, will not look anywhere near as good as daytime outdoor shots. However, to put this into context, to get a camera with a larger sensor and faster lens that will do well for indoor lower light shots (like the Canon S120, Canon G7x or Sony RX100) you will have to spend considerably more for a heavier, larger camera and give up that long zoom range.Secondly, this camera is designed for the beginner and for automatic use. Because of it's small size it does not have much in terms of external controls such as exposure compensation. The result is that if you do know what you are doing and want to change something you will have to dive into the menus to change that setting. Again this is inherent in this type of camera. Note that although this camera does not provide any flash compensation (an annoying oversight) the flash seems to be much better than that for the previous generation, the WX300, which had a tendency to washout anything too close to the camera..The only specific issue with the camera for me is that it's screen is not very visible in bright light. (Not ideal for a camera that I really only use outdoors.) I solved this by buying a non-reflective phone screen protector and cutting it down to size for the camera. This only cost a couple of pounds.