Before leaving on our trek through Scotland, my wife and I discussed taking our video camcorder wiith us. However, I wanted to keep the lugging around of mobile devices to a minimum. My trusty Sony DSC-P10 does have movie capability but the quality is poor, so I decided to research what technology was available in Sony's current camera line up. I found the DSC-W70 to have a 640 X 480, 30 fps movie mode which should work well with my standard definition TV. For a list price of $299, 7.2 Mega Pixel still image capability and a 2.5" LCD, this was a tough gadget to pass up. I had been looking at possibly switching to Canon because they use SD cards rather than Sony's proprietary Memory Stick, making picture transfers to my T-Mobile MDA and Thinkpad X41 easier, but I never liked having a separate charger. My DSC-P10 charges the battery internally and with the iGo tip, I only travel with the iGo power adapter for all my devices. The DSC-W70 uses the same iGo power tip which was another plus. I read some very good reviews on digitalcamera-hq and steves-digicams, so I took the plunge. Sears advertised a price of $269, but they had none in stock, the local Sony Style store was willing to match the price but had none in stock. I finely found one at a regional camera store (Penn Camera) who negotiated me up to $280. It looks like the current Internet price is around $270 with shipping. The camera has 58MB of internal memory but to use the 30 fps movie mode you need a Memory Stick Pro Duo. I purchased a Sandisk 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo for $94 from Circuit City, however Buy.com has them for $80 if you can wait for shipping.
I opened the box to find a separate battery charger, I was concerned that the camera did not charge the battery (one of my reason's for not going with Canon), the manual did not explicitly state that the camera did not charge the battery. I thought that not including a power adapter as well as no Memory Stick was Sony's way of cost cutting. So I left on our trip without the battery charger. After using the camera for several days, the battery needed a charge and I plugged it in overnight with my iGo 3500 power adapter. The next morning, the battery had not charged. Could the camera or battery be defective? Luckily we were in Glasgow and after finding a helpful camera shop, they pointed me to a Sony Style store. The sales people thought the camera should charge the battery but they were not sure. They could not do anything about the warranty since you have to ship defective cameras back to a Sony service center, not an option on our trip. They happen to have a Sony BC-TRG high speed charger. I purchased it for 45 pounds (~$84) to validate whether I had a problem with the camera or battery, not cheap but I was glad they had an option. The battery charged up in about 90 minutes and worked flawlessly throughout the trip. I decided to contact Sony when I got back. I fist emailed them and received, what looked like, an automated response that I should return the camera for warranty service, I was not convinced that this was appropriate. I called Sony and after talking to two different individuals I am pretty certain the camera does not charge the battery. All the Sony literature does not state that it does not charge, but it does not say that it does. I think they left this feature out, but are not willing to directly mention that you can only use an external battery charger, although the inclusion of one with the camera is a clear indication that the camera does not charge the battery. They also are now choosing to use a basic Lithium-Ion battery in their new DSC line of cameras versus the Info-Lithium battery which provided you with minutes left on the display. The change in battery design may also have something to do with the lack of embedded charging.
My DSC-P10 had a voice note record feature. You could make a voice note which attached to a picture. This is a great feature when traveling to make sure you don't forget what the shot was about, unfortunately this feature is not included in the DSC-W70.
I really like the size of the camera in my hand and the large LCD is great. I was able to store 390 7.2 MP pictures and 20 movies clips on the 2GB Memory Stick, although I backed everything up to my 60GB iPod for safety purposes.
When I got back, I created a DVD using Microsoft's Movie Maker 2.1 to edit and Nero 6 to create the DVD image. The results were very impressive, the clarity of the images is outstanding on standard definition TV and at 30 frames per second, no jerkiness. I will have to try it on an high definition TV. The 7.2MP pictures are excellent, although the CCD has a tendency to overdo greens. This is not a big problem since it can be easily corrected on a PC. The camera has enough manual settings for my use; the one's that I use the most are the exposure +/- (EV) and white balance settings.
Pros
- Excellent movie quality
- Excellent still image quality
- Excellent digital zoom
- Great LCD
- Great size for pocket
- Still includes a viewfinder
- Lightweight
Cons
- No internal battery charger
- Proprietary battery size
- No voice note to picture capability
- Uses proprietary Memory Stick
In the end I am stuck with external battery charging and Memory Sticks, however I would highly recommend this camera. It is not perfect but the price/performance is tough to beat.
Here is a shot Portree, Isle of Sky, Scotland, resized to 370x278.
I created a category for the camera (Sony DSC-W70) to easily group my entries as well as my travel technology entries.
Update 7/7/06: I found the definitive answer on charging the battery pack in the camera on a diagram on page 18 of the users manual "If you connect the AC-LS5K AC adapter you cannot charge the battery pack".
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