Don't judge a book by its cover, and don't judge a camera by its body. While the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W35 looks exactly like last year's lackluster Cyber-shot DSC-W30 and sports similar features, it performs better and takes better photos than its predecessor.
Design
Though identical in size and shape to the DSC-W30, the 22.9mm thick DSC-W35 is a full 28 grams lighter than its predecessor. With battery, the W35 weighs a scant 152 grams compared to the W30's significantly heftier 193 grams. A much lighter battery accounts for some of this weight difference, as the metal cameras respectively weigh 119 grams and 128 grams without battery or memory card. Fortunately, the battery doesn't sacrifice any power with its weight; the W35's battery is a 3.6-volt, 960mAh Lithium-ion pack, just like the W30.
From the mode dial in the upper-right corner to the USB jack just below the LCD, the two cameras' designs are almost exactly the same. The controls are responsive and comfortable to handle, so we can't really find any fault in Sony recycling their design. The only problem we found was the anemic 2-inch LCD screen. We're glad that it leaves enough room on the back of the camera for an optical viewfinder, but these days a 2-inch screen just feels too small.
Features
The W35 sports all the features you'd expect in a budget-minded snapshot camera, including a 7-megapixel sensor and the almost obligatory 38mm-to-114mm (35mm equivalent) 3x zoom lens. Though you won't find manual exposure controls, the camera has a handful of scene presets for shooting in different situations, including an ISO 1000 sensitivity mode for shooting in low light. It also has 56MB of internal memory, enough for taking 16 full-resolution photos without a memory card. If you want to shoot more than a handful at any given time, you should invest in a Memory Stick Duo card.
Performance
The camera performed quite well in our tests, considering its low price tag. After a mere 1.4-second startup time, we were rattling off shots every 1.4 seconds. With the onboard flash enabled, that time slightly increased to 1.7 seconds. Shutter lag was a peppy 0.4 seconds in bright light, though the lag increased to 1.7 seconds in dim environments. Burst mode was acceptable, snapping four full-resolution shots in just under three seconds for a rate of 1.34 frames per second.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
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Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Time to first shot | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
Image quality
Images taken on the W35 were generally clear and pleasing. Despite the slight softening of some finer details, the photos were nice and crisp. Colours generally reproduced well, though users should remember to switch to the tungsten white balance when shooting indoors -- our tungsten-lit test shots taken under automatic white balance were harsh and yellow.
Sony does an impressive job of taming noise through the W35's sensitivity range. At ISO100 images were very clean, with no noticeable noise, even when viewed on a monitor. ISO 200 and ISO 400 had extremely minor speckles of noise that were visible on a computer monitor, but weren't noticeable in prints. At ISO 800, noise became visible in prints and was very noticeable on monitors. Surprisingly though, even at ISO 1000, the W35 produces usable, if grainy, prints with vivid and accurate colours. However, we'd suggest staying below ISO 1000 or ISO 800 when possible, for better results. This is a great improvement over the W30, whose high-ISO images were extremely noisy and dull.
For a budget camera, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W35 is a very good choice. With satisfying performance and good picture quality, this sub-AU$400 shooter would fit well in the pocket of anyone looking for a reliable, inexpensive camera.
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BuBz
23/09/2008, 01:36 AM
rating
6/10
i Like mine but it has perfromed pretty great
Pros: lots of different settings
battery power is great
small and compact
Cons: takes too long to take the picture
my on/off button sometimes ticks me off
Lens has to be well looked after
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James
07/07/2008, 02:32 PM
rating
9/10
I have dsc-w35. Its nice and fast camera and give good results of snaps. The best feature in sony digital cameras is photo storage feature. This camera records in its cache fot this reason its opperate very fast. I make many cds of my pictures because i nearly about take 10000 pictures from my this camera in maximum 3 months. Its crazy but yes i am crazy.
Pros: Attractive design.
Anti-shake capabilities.
Useful selection of scene modes.
Zippy performance.
Quick shot-to-shot performance.
Cons: On/off button a bit awkward.
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malcolml
22/10/2007, 03:34 PM
rating
4/10
I cannot recommend this model as mine is in for repairs after 18 days! I bought mine to replace another cybershot which stopped working after 18 months.
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saad
31/07/2007, 08:12 PM
rating
8/10
wow............
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