The Sony DSC W80 is a seven megapixel, pocket sized digital camera offering fair value for money. It has a standard 3x optical zoom lens. For the style conscious Sony have produced the DSC W80 in four colours. These are black, silver, pink and white.
There are smaller digital cameras around, but at around 23mm wide it should just about slip into a standard size pocket. It weighs in at 124g before the battery and any memory card are added.
A memory card is not supplied as standard with the DSC W80. This is because 31mb of storage has been built into the camera. Although Sony have been more generous than most companies are you will soon find you need to pick up a memory card to go with the camera. It is compatible with memory stick duo and memory stick duo pro cards. Whether or not you will actually derive any real benefit from the more expensive pro card is debatable. Areas where this type of card is more likely to make a difference is when shooting movies or using continuous shooting.
Power is supplied to the DSC W80 by a lithium ion battery. Both a battery and charger are supplied with the camera as standard. Sony estimates you should be able to take around 340 shots in between charges. Whether or not you can achieve this target will depend to a degree on how you use the camera. For example recording movies, transferring photos to a computer and using the flash unit all take a toll on battery levels.
One of the main attractions of the camera is the fact that it is quite straightforward and easy to use. It has a good balance between features and ease of use. There does not seem to be any key features missing when compared to other standard point and shoot digital cameras, but Sony have still managed to keep the camera simple enough to operate.
An added bonus with this camera is the fact that it has a viewfinder. This complements the 2.5 inch LCD screen and can be a big help on bright sunny days when LCD screens can become more difficult to see. Holding a camera up to an eye when taking a photo can also make it easier to hold steady than when holding the camera out in front of you. This can help to reduce camera shake and therefore make your photos that little bit sharper. Viewfinders seem to be becoming rarer and this is one of the few pocket sized digital cameras with one.
The menu gives you options to change the resolution, use continuous shooting and bracketing, use colour effects such as black and white, change ISO, exposure compensation, metering, focusing, white balance, flash level, use red eye reduction, image stabilisation and enter the setup menu.
