Blather: Sony Cybershot Dscw80 7.2mp Digital Camera With 3x Optical Zoom And Super Steady Shot (silv

Recreate the moment with the incredibly lifelike pictures you'll take with the silver DSC-W80 7.2 Megapixel Cyber-shot digital camera. Your friends will be impressed with its combination of high fashion and advanced performance. With features like Face Detection to bring out the most natural tones in faces and HD output for presentation, sharing pictures becomes an experience to remember. The convenient in-camera retouching and red-eye reduction expands your creativity while the double anti-blur solution allows low-light shooting without flash. And the Carl Zeiss 3x optical zoom lens lets you view the action very closely through the large 2.5" LCD screen.This is the 3rd Sony camera I've purchased (P93, H5, W80), but IT WILL BE THE LAST.
I bought this Camera approximately 1 week before my wedding to carry with us on our honeymoon. We were gone for 2 weeks and a week after we got back I started to notice Dust behind the glass over the rear LCD panel. I carried the camera in my pocket every day for approximately one month and I was seeing dust.
I called Sony who instructed me to take it back to BestBuy (where I made the purchase). I did so and they sent it out to get repaired. When I got it back it looked great, for about 2 months...
I then called again and explained that there must obviously be a defect as this is the second time within the first few months of owning the camera. They said they'd gladly take a look at it but they couldn't do anything such as exchange it for another one, or give me credit to buy a different model without looking at it first. This made perfect sense to me so I sent it off.
A few weeks later I get a phone call from the repair facility explaining that they can't do anything because they are a "complete repair facility" and there is a minor dent in the top of the camera. I'm aware of the dent but it's microscopic. I have no clue how it even got there and I even get them to admit it has no affect on the camera whatsoever. Still no luck and they wanted $135 to repair it. NO THANKS!
When I got the camera back I cleaned it myself using a microfiber cloth and an eye glass repair kit since they wouldn't even do that. I have pictures of the process and intend on writing up a how-to guide on my blog. This all happened about 6 months ago. Since then it's been relatively fine until about 2 weeks ago when the memory card/battery door broke off.
This camera has easily been THE WORST I've owned. I wish I had pictures available of the amount of dust I found inside once I decided to operate myself.
I would like to say, when there was no dust inside the camera took phenomenal quality pictures for a compact, despite the lack of manual controls.
I would NEVER RECOMMEND this camera to anyone. The build quality is absolutely HORRIBLE.

I have owned this camera one year this christmas and have had very good luck with it I would recommend it to anyone who wants a excellent pocket camera to catch all of lifes little moments.

_ Robert

I bought this camera May 2008 after my previous Sony W1 was stolen. I needed a replacement quickly so I didn't do any research or read online reviews. (I had owned 2 previous Sony cameras, so I was confident I would get a good product.) I was a little skeptical about the smaller compact size, but on the first day I owned it I walked outside and took a few shots of my landscape (very colorful, as I have lots of flowers) and I was pleased. Kept it the rest of the summer, taking mostly outdoor (poolside & landscape shots). I also fell in love with it's small size, making it a dream to carry in a pocket or purse. I found a small zipper cover at Staples that fits it's perfectly (for only $10, compared to Sony's $40 soft-case). It wasn't until we had a family gathering in the fall that I realized the down-side of this camera. Most of the indoor pictures are grainy & just not very crisp. The camera struggles in lower light conditions, even in a moderately lit room. If a flash is used, faces look white & washed out and eyes are always red. Of course, editing eyes is always an option, but this gets old when you have to edit every single indoor photo you take. However, I'm still a fan of Sony cameras, so I'm trading this one for a more expensive model. I'm hoping the DSC-H10 or H50 will make he a happier camper! Again, if you just need to take outdoor shots, like on your job or something, this is a fantastic camera. If you need good clear pics of people indoors (like weddings, dinners, parties, etc) DON'T count on this one.

I got this camera last year to replace my Canon SD10 which i loved and i still love becasue it works better than this new DSC-W80. It takes blurry pictures, shutter is too slow and its just a piece of junk. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone! and trust me there is no operator error, i owned many cameras and i know how to take a picture.

My wife bought this camera about 10 months ago, in (long advance) preparation for a trip this winter. She has been using a Nikon Coolpix 8700 that she's very pleased with, but wanted something pocketable. She has some balance issues, so the "Steady Shot" image stabilization was attractive. After reading reviews in a leading consumer publication, she bought the DSC-W80.
Positives: Outdoors, it does very well. Colors are warm and true. The image stabilization works well (I have a mild hand tremor, so I'm a good tester...) Sharpness is acceptable.
Negatives: Indoors, not so hot. As has been posted elswhere, when the camera is faced with dim illumination, the in-camera processing creates a lot of noise, which obliterates most detail in the images. The flash is feeble, and somewhat slow to fire. It commonly produces a "hot spot" in the center of the image, rather than even lighting. The menu system is much less intuitive than on the Nikons we both have, or on some of the Canons I've been looking at. One of the strangest things I have run into is that you can set the size of the captured file (i.e. number of MP), but not the display resolution. For example, a 7MP image comes up on screen as a 72 px/inch, 42.67 X 32 inch image. If you bring that image up on screen in Photoshop, and zoom in to 100%, you're looking at an oddly pixelated image for what should be your highest quality setting. The only cure I've found for on-screen viewing is to run it through Photoshop and resize it both by size and by pixels/inch. Now maybe that's just a Sony oddity that has only stymied me, but I thought it was worth putting out there. Hopefully this is useful information for you.