The Cyber-shot W100 belongs to Sony's W-series which also includes other lesser models such as the W70, W50 and W30. These cameras are targeted primarily at first-time users and people looking to replace their current compact shooters.
Design
Boxy is an understatement when it comes to the design of Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-W100. In fact, it not only has a square-ish exterior, the unit also comes with some rather awkward slopes and protrusions. This 8-megapixel camera measures 94m by 61mm by 25mm and weighs 190g (with battery and Memory Stick DUO) -- something you would not put in your chest pocket due to its weight. However, the unit does feel very solid in the hands.
The textured face of this shooter just doesn't look aesthetically pleasing. However, it does eliminates fingerprint stains and has, to a very limited extent, the ability to prevent your digits from slipping on the surface, ensuring a better grip.
An optical viewfinder sits on the top left corner at the back of the camera -- the area where we mentioned about the awkward protrusion -- just beside the indicator lights and speakers. At the other end, there's a mode dial which cycles among the various camera settings and the playback button. The rest of the keys lie to the right of the 2.5-inch LCD on the rear.
The usual camera's controls (power button, zoom rocker), connections (DC-in, multi-port connector) and battery/Memory Stick DUO compartment surround the four edges of this Cyber-shot.
Features
The features on the Cyber-shot W100 are rather basic, but compared with its siblings in the W-series, the W100 stands out by offering manual controls, though it's still somewhat limited. At the wide-angle end of the lens, you can select apertures F2.8 and F5.6, and at the maximum telephoto end, you can choose F5.2 and F10. Shutter speeds range from 1/1,000 second to 30 seconds.
The W100 is an 8-megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom (38-to-114mm, 35mm equivalent). Unlike the Cyber-shot DSC-W70 which has a maximum sensitivity setting of ISO 1,000, the W100 pushes the edge a little to ISO 1,250. As to how our pictures would turn out at the maximum ISO, we'll find out later in the review.
What's nice of Sony is to include 64MB of internal memory; coincidentally also the unit with the largest memory capacity in the W-series. Other user-friendly features include the onscreen overlay which displays the mode setting you are at -- good for dimly lit environments.
Other than the limited manual controls, there's also the Auto mode which pretty much leaves all the decisions to the camera's mechanism, several scene selections (Soft Snap, Landscape, Beach, Twilight Portrait, Twilight) and Program mode which you can configure metering, focusing, white balance, contrast and sharpness.
Performance
The Cyber-shot DSC-W100 powered up in 1.3 seconds (which included the time for the lens to extend and warm up) and we managed to take our first shot at 1.8 seconds. Shutting down the unit was a little slower (1.6 seconds), but you won't actually feel the difference.
We could shoot thereafter every 1.7 seconds without flash. With flash on, it took 2.2 seconds between shots. With red-eye flash turned on, performance was still decent at 2.8 seconds for every picture.
Though the camera locked focus at an average of 0.5 seconds at the wide-angle setting, the unit faltered a little on the telephoto end. Continuous shooting was disappointing. In the normal burst mode, we could capture only four shots at a sluggish one frame-per-second rate. The LCD would black out in between shots so you might have to rely on the optical viewfinder if your subject is in motion. The multi-burst function was able to take a total of 16 consecutive frames and collate them into a single 1-megapixel file.
Image Quality
Even though there's no option to custom set white balance on this Cyber-shot, the W100 still churned out decent images. Noise was reasonably controlled up to ISO 400, but at ISO 800 and ISO 1,250, you would be making only small prints at best. Still, the W100 proved to be one of the better-faring cameras when it came to noise at ISO 400.
Overall, our images were well-exposed with purple fringing only moderately affecting some of our heavily backlit pictures. Barrel distortion was kept to a minimal. Colours were also rich and saturated which we liked.
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