Sony CyberShot DSC-P200

Overall the Sony CyberShot DSC-P200 is a good camera, I have had mine for about 2 and a half year and it is great for what I need it for.

The cost of repair is more than what I can buy a new camera for - thanks for nothing Sony.

I have to say, on the whole I'm rather disappointed with the CyberShot P200, after reading such excellent reviews. What appealed to me most was the high resolution, battery life, feature rich, screen size and value for money. These did not fail to impress but disappointingly the picture quality and crispness left a lot to be desired.

Nearly 50% of the pictures would appear clear on the camera screen but later prove blurred when enlarged on the PC. The camera required a very steady hand and any long exposure times require a tripod which was most inconvenient. The camera struggled in various lighting settings, so often the exposure would be incorrect. The lack of manual controls didn't help resolve matters at crucial moments either and the macro feature lacked in performance.

In conclusion: Sony offer plenty of bells and whistles, robustness and value for money but fail miserably when it comes to producing crystal clear pictures. Which in my opinion is a camera's primary purpose. I found my old Nikon 3200 Coolpix would have been far superior despite only having 3.2 Mp. In short Sony still require a lot more hardware development before they can compete with experienced companies such as Nikon, Canon and the like.

This Sony CyberShot DSC-P200 Camera is so typically Sony. It oozes quality. It's a joy to use and 7.2 Megapixels. Carl Zeiss lens! Amazing! Macro is pretty good too! If it were a laptop it'd be a vaio. What can I say?

The great thing about his camera apart from it's superb design and ergonomics is that it's got an amazingly fast start-up time. The features are great (specially the pre-shot light) differing quality levels and I use it as a portable hard drive occasionally. The video quality (for stills camera) is fantastic and with 45 mins of fairly good quality video on a 1/2Gb stick not too short. It also monitors your battery life telling you how long it will last.

Doesn't have Bluetooth but you can't have everything.

The Sony CyberShot DSC-P200 digital camera has so far lived up to all my expectations, and beyond.

The 7.2 mega-pixel facility means you can print crystal-clear prints on A4 photo paper, but most of the time the 5 mega-pixel setting is perfectly good enough for high quality images. As for reliability, the camera has never let me down. It has a solid metallic feel, which is sufficient to give a good hand-hold. I can't believe that some people feel the camera is now on the large side. If you go much smaller than this it would be too small to hold comfortably. The menu facility is easy to access, and, if you are patient enough to either read the manual or just through trial and error, it is not difficult to find your way around.

For a lot of users the programmed point and shoot function will be the preferred option, but for the more adventurous user there is a manual override facility to get your desired aperture or shutter speed setting. The macro facility also works well for getting quality close-ups.

The video quality is good, but there is no zoom facility once recording has started. This is not unusual for cameras of this age however, but at the end of the day this is primarily a stills camera, so it's not too big a loss.

Anyone concerned about the Memory Stick format can rest easy that you can now buy Memory Stick Pro or Memory Stick Duo (with adapter) to use with the P200 for little more, or the same as any other media, so let's not have any more grumbles about being tied into Sony. Surely you did your homework and knew what you were buying in the first place!

In summary, I would highly recommend this camera to anyone. I have had no faults whatsoever, and few, if any, wasted shots (if it's possible to have wasted shots with a digital camera). I would also have no hesitation in replacing the P200 with another Sony model, and I am anxiously waiting to read reviews on the 12x zoom DSC-H2, which might well be next on my shopping list.

I purchased the Sony CyberShot DSC-P200digital camera before a trip to Floria last year. I am so so pleased with the quality of photos taken by the camera, which have fully captured the environment of Disney World and Epcot etc.

The camera is a doddle to use. All the modes are on a dial on top of the camera, and I am so impressed with 'night-shot' mode, which enabled me to take a quite incredible picture of Cinderella's castle as it neared dark.

I'm not a camera expert, but I can't see where you can go wrong with this. You get quality pictures, big screen for easy viewing, and it is a quality purchase.

I bought a Sony CyberShot DSC-P200 camera after reading the many excellent reviews, the main attraction being the high resolution for the price. It is easy to use, although one minor gripe is the mode selection dial, which can be turned inadvertantly when getting it in and out of the case. This dial is also a little hard to read, but when you turn it the screen shows what setting you are on, so you can get around that.

The camera feels solid and is obviously a quality build. It has plenty of useful features, such as manual mode, which is handy for night-time shots, and spot metering, which I found very useful in variable lighting conditions. My major complaint with it is that the colours come out less vivid than my other two digital cameras, a Nikon Coolpix and a Fuji Finepix. I have done an extensive comparison with my Fuji Finepix S304, which although only 3.2 mp, gives far more vivid colours and makes the results from the Sony rather lacklustre to say the least. This is not a minor issue - the difference really is noticable! The Sony has a much higher resolution, so detail is sharper, but the colour issue is a real disappointment for me. For that reason alone, I would not recommend this camera

I had the Sony CyberShot DSC-P200 digital camera bought for me as a present as I wanted one for around a year, but wish I didn't get it now I should have opted for a Samsung or Olympus etc.

I first used it for 1 week and the flash broke. I had to send it back to a Sony Service Centre for repair. It came back 3 weeks later with a scratch on the LCD screen, so I sent it back again. 5 days later I received it back. The screen had been fixed, but now I had a big blob on the inside of the lens. Sony would not exchange or refund, and they just kept telling me to send it for repair. You would think Sony would be a great company to rely on and invest in their technology, but their customer service is terrible, and they also have bad policies.

It is a good camera, but not worth paying the money for. I would recommend a Samsung S800 or V800, or equivalent. There are plenty of good cameras out there at the moment.

The Sony CyberShot DSC-P200 is first 'proper' digital camera, and one I'm happy to recommend to anyone. I paid a little bit more than I was intending to when choosing a camera, but I don't regret the extra spend at all.

Firstly, it feels very solid in my hands. I've handled a few digital cameras before, and often they've felt a little bit 'brittle' or plastic-y, whereas the DSCP200 feels remarkably heavy for such a small camera.

I don't know an awful lot about digital camera technology, but a name I recognise in lenses from my experience with binoculars and telescopes is Carl Zeiss. The DSCP200 has a Zeiss lens, which to me at least indicates great quality. I like the fact that Sony have outsourced the lens manufacture on this camera - it suggests to me that they're prepared to use the best components rather than just trying to build everything in house.

In terms of use, it's got great default 'pick up and click' features. My wife (much less prone to fiddling with the settings than I!) is happy to use it as it comes. The manual settings are very easy to find and use through an intuitive interface. Again, the simplicity of the feature set is a great bonus. Doubtless for serious photographers the settings may be a little limited, but for the average bloke they are more than adequate, and have encouraged me to get interested in depth of field, focus settings and so on.

There are one or two little gripes. In light that isn't very dim at all, I have found it very easy to take red tinged photographs when really the camera should have been able to deal with the light - especially with the flash activated. Also, like a lot of digital cameras, the pause between the camera focussing and actually taking the picture means it is easy to lose focus. If you're not familiar with auto-focussing, it is easy to snap dozens of pictures without realising that they are actually out of focus.

The battery life and screen resolution are both very good. In the 5 months or so that I've had the camera, I've taken hundreds of pictures and only recharged it 4-5 times.

Overall, a very good little camera with a couple of flaws that it probably shares with all digital cameras. Maybe a little bit pricey for a casual user, but if you've got the money then I'd recommend it for the huge 7mp resolution if nothing else.

The Sony CyberShot DSC-P200 is my first digital camera.

I must say the quality is very good.

I take pictures of fish, and the quality of the fish pictures have been excellent.

I am very pleased with the camera.