Sony Reviews

This saves time and battery life. Use it over again and again- just like a floppy disk drive. Buy Sony original products and you'll be safe- don't save a few pennies by buying generics, you get what you pay for. Recommendation: Strong Buy

When I purchased my last laptop, I looked at a VAIO, just for the MemoryStick drive. Ultimately, I decided to buy a PowerBook G4. (I know the specs say OS 7.5 or later, but this device is definitely Panther-compatible!) I *love* this card! I just leave it in my card bay all the time, and presto! I have a Memory Stick drive!

Data transfer is much faster than that using a camera's USB cable, and much less unwieldy. When you insert a memory stick, it simply appears as a drive, and you can do to it all the things that you usually do with drives! When a stick isn't inserted, you can easily forget that the card is in.

One important thing to note: this device really shouldn't be removed and then reinserted without rebooting. If you don't reboot, it won't show up! Just eject the stick instead of the card.

A must have. Using the camera to download images to your computer--if it even works--is a slow process and you need to use the Sony Picture Lite software, which is terrible. This allows you to access the images and movies instantly, and open them directly in a good image manipulating program like Photoshop.

While I do not personally own this camera, my younger brother does and I have seen the beautiful, high quality photographs that he is able to take with it. The pictures are so sharp that they are breath-taking. I suspect this is due to the Zeiss lens. It is also easy to frame the subject in any light because it has a good view finder whereas many of the newer models rely solely on the LCD screen which is hard to use in bright sunlight or in low-light situations. The nicest feature is the ability to store photographs on the 3" CD, which then comes out of the camera and goes directly into a standard CD drive on your PC. This mode of storage allows the photographer to take hundreds of shots while in the field without having to download a memory stick or memory card after 19 or 38 (depending upon the size of the memory card)to a PC. The small CDs are easily transported in the camera bag and make the camera a real winner in my book. I particularly like the the view finder over the LCD screen for ease of framing the subject and getting the best results. If this camera had had a slightly higher pixel rating, I would have given in five stars, but from the pictures my brother has sent to me and the ones I have seen printed in 8X10 framed pictures, I have been sold on this camera. Absolutely the most professional looking pictures I have ever seen from an amateur photographer. Color saturation and accuracy are also top notch. It has all the right features to suit my needs.

I have had the opportunity to review many of the recent digital cameras. From the 1.3 to 3.34 megapixel. I wasn't sure I would like this particular camera because of the 2.1 megapixel technology. It was the CD-R that enticed me to order one. When I opened the box and started using it I was pleasently surprised.

The camera takes some very nice pictures at any resolution. Tiff images @ 1600X1200 take a good 15+ seconds to write to the CD-R. JPG pictures @ 1600X1200 take a little less than two seconds to write to the CD-R. This camera is not designed to take bursting pictures or situations that require rapid succession of shots.

The flash works well in normal and red-eye reduction modes. Macro shots do not do well with the flash. The lens assembly prevents the flash from reaching a macro subject.

The MPEG movie mode works quite well and just like any of the other Mavica series cameras. The limitation is a maximum recording time of 15 seconds. If you shot is longer than this you have to take multiple 15 second shots.

The USB connection is really nice. I can transfer pictures in seconds from the camera to the computer. The supplied drivers allow the camera to become another drive letter on your computer when it is plugged in. I am using WindowsME without any issue with this camera or software. I little FYI note is included in the box informing the purchaser that USB drivers for Windows2000 are not included. The note gives a URL to check for the Windows2000 driver. As of this writing the driver is not on the web site.

Initializing a new CD-R is fast and easy. It takes about 20 seconds. The included adaptec software will also let you format the CD-R in the camera from your PC with the USB cable attached. The included software will also let you copy files from your PC to the CD-R on the camera. Finalizing a CD-R when it is full is easy and straightforward. After the CD is finalized it's contents can be viewed in any computer that has a CD. 3" CD-R's are readily available from many sources and are priced very attractively. Buy them in bulk and you are really saving a lot of money over single CD-R purchases.

The image stabilization makes a noticeable differences in both the optical and zoom modes. Battery life is excellant. I get about 120 minutes of usage between charges.

All in all I really like this camera and will keep it. However, I will really be interested in Sony's next version of a CD-R camera. It should address some of the minor short comings of this one.

I have had this camera for 4 years now and its still a great camera!!! I bought this camera new.
Writing to cd is really great. I can take 155 pictures on the highest quality setting.
The disc needs to be initialized before using, this can take about 30-45 secs. Then it has to be finalized, another 30-45 secs. That has to be done before you put it in your computers cd rom drive to view your pictures. However, you can just connect the usb feature and save from there.
The lcd on this camers is great too. You can also take a 1 minute long video.

Still very happy with it.