Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-N1 Digital Camera
Out of stock |
Similar in Digital Cameras
- Digital Zoom: 6x
- Camera Type: Compact
- Weight: 0.33 lb.
- LCD Screen Size: 3 in.
- Resolution: 8.1 Megapixel
- Optical Zoom: 3x
- Overview
-
Reviews
-
Compare Prices
User ReviewRead All Reviews »
Sony DSC-N1 Preliminary Tests
Pros
Great pictures. BEATIFUL 3 inch screen. Extra "bells and whistles".
Cons
Motion sensor keeps showing up. But I haven't had a full shakedown.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Excellent pics and highest resolution from an ultracompact. The slideshow will draw oohs and ahhs from friends. Beatiful screen.
Just got the camera and I must say that I am very impressed. If you've been in the market for one of these cameras for the holidays you probably already know what an ordeal it can be to come across one.
Buying experience
I initially ordered one of these a week before Christmas from Ritz/Wolf Camera (same company). I was not at all pleased with them. They sent me an email to call them to confirm the transaction which by the time I did, the camera was sold out. Definitely not the best customer service considering that they could have called me instead to verify the charge. I know little mom and pop stores that call customers (for items less than $100!) if there are any issues with the purchase. At any right I moved on to Crutchfield which was a little better. They had free overnight shipping so I should've have received the camera before Xmas except they shipped via UPS ground by mistake. Arghh! I just needed to whine about that.
Camera design
The camera has a handsome silver finish and is quite small. It can easily fit in a pant or shirt pocket although you'd probably want to avoid that and get a sturdy case (option) for it to protect the screen. Also had a solid feel to it. It's not the smallest of the ultra-compacts though. I've tried the Kodak Easy Share V550 which is smaller. Of course with the Kodak, you're giving up 3 megapixels to the Sony's 8. It is probably slightly less bulky than the Canon SD550 though. All in all, no complaints here except that maybe I would've preferred the camera in black. Seems like every other camera you see out there is silver.
Touchscreen
Easily the most noticeable feature is the huge screen. Pretty soon no doubt other manufacturers will follow suit but for now, this has to be the benchmark for digicam screens. It is truly a gorgeous hi-res screen. The performance is just like the Xbrite LCD's Sony uses on its Vaio Laptops. The Kodak's screen (which has been rated very favorably) fades in comparison. Ditto for Canon and others. Using the screen is a joy. The user interface is very intuitive. You can tell this was designed to be user friendly and to appeal to female users. The camera has a stylus so you don't have to use your fingers and get oil on the screen. I personally preferred using my finger and found the stylus a little too cumbersome. Also, the stylus doesn't slide into the camera so it's one more thing to carry around. It's important to note that the camera has NO optical viewfinder. Thus battery life may become an issue. But then again, when was the last time anyone with a point-and-shooter used the optical viewfinder?
Image quality/Performance
Of course, image quality should be the paramount consideration when buying a digital camera and so far, the pictures have been quite remarkable. With 8 megapixels you can create some pretty large prints although I'm sure most users will use it to print standard 4x6 images. You'll find no problems here. Using the auto and twilight settings, the camera produced very sharp and vivid pictures. I haven't had the chance to shakedown the camera using all the settings but based on the limited testing, I was very impressed. The images are just great and will surely please anyone but the most discriminating user- who shouldn't really be using a point-and-shooter anyway. I have a Canon PowerShot prosumer camera and in comparison, this camera leaves nothing to be desired in the way of image quality.
I did have a couple of issues when I was testing the camera though. The first was an annoying "motion" warning. This icon showed up on the screen on all the shots I took, regardless of whether they came out blurred. Maybe I need to spend some more time with the manual. The other issue was that there was a bit of a delay with the shutter. The flash seemed to fire just a little sooner than the shutter went off. Less than ideal obvously particularly when doing portraits or group shots where everyone wants to "time their smiles" just right.
Conclusion
Preliminary tests are very promising and show a lot of potential for the camera(especially for a point and shooter). It's hard to fault the camera with great pics, a beautiful screen and the added on board functions like the slideshow,etc.
There are also samples on the web. Here's a link from dcresource.com:
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/sony/dsc_n1-review/preprod/gallery.shtml
Buying experience
I initially ordered one of these a week before Christmas from Ritz/Wolf Camera (same company). I was not at all pleased with them. They sent me an email to call them to confirm the transaction which by the time I did, the camera was sold out. Definitely not the best customer service considering that they could have called me instead to verify the charge. I know little mom and pop stores that call customers (for items less than $100!) if there are any issues with the purchase. At any right I moved on to Crutchfield which was a little better. They had free overnight shipping so I should've have received the camera before Xmas except they shipped via UPS ground by mistake. Arghh! I just needed to whine about that.
Camera design
The camera has a handsome silver finish and is quite small. It can easily fit in a pant or shirt pocket although you'd probably want to avoid that and get a sturdy case (option) for it to protect the screen. Also had a solid feel to it. It's not the smallest of the ultra-compacts though. I've tried the Kodak Easy Share V550 which is smaller. Of course with the Kodak, you're giving up 3 megapixels to the Sony's 8. It is probably slightly less bulky than the Canon SD550 though. All in all, no complaints here except that maybe I would've preferred the camera in black. Seems like every other camera you see out there is silver.
Touchscreen
Easily the most noticeable feature is the huge screen. Pretty soon no doubt other manufacturers will follow suit but for now, this has to be the benchmark for digicam screens. It is truly a gorgeous hi-res screen. The performance is just like the Xbrite LCD's Sony uses on its Vaio Laptops. The Kodak's screen (which has been rated very favorably) fades in comparison. Ditto for Canon and others. Using the screen is a joy. The user interface is very intuitive. You can tell this was designed to be user friendly and to appeal to female users. The camera has a stylus so you don't have to use your fingers and get oil on the screen. I personally preferred using my finger and found the stylus a little too cumbersome. Also, the stylus doesn't slide into the camera so it's one more thing to carry around. It's important to note that the camera has NO optical viewfinder. Thus battery life may become an issue. But then again, when was the last time anyone with a point-and-shooter used the optical viewfinder?
Image quality/Performance
Of course, image quality should be the paramount consideration when buying a digital camera and so far, the pictures have been quite remarkable. With 8 megapixels you can create some pretty large prints although I'm sure most users will use it to print standard 4x6 images. You'll find no problems here. Using the auto and twilight settings, the camera produced very sharp and vivid pictures. I haven't had the chance to shakedown the camera using all the settings but based on the limited testing, I was very impressed. The images are just great and will surely please anyone but the most discriminating user- who shouldn't really be using a point-and-shooter anyway. I have a Canon PowerShot prosumer camera and in comparison, this camera leaves nothing to be desired in the way of image quality.
I did have a couple of issues when I was testing the camera though. The first was an annoying "motion" warning. This icon showed up on the screen on all the shots I took, regardless of whether they came out blurred. Maybe I need to spend some more time with the manual. The other issue was that there was a bit of a delay with the shutter. The flash seemed to fire just a little sooner than the shutter went off. Less than ideal obvously particularly when doing portraits or group shots where everyone wants to "time their smiles" just right.
Conclusion
Preliminary tests are very promising and show a lot of potential for the camera(especially for a point and shooter). It's hard to fault the camera with great pics, a beautiful screen and the added on board functions like the slideshow,etc.
There are also samples on the web. Here's a link from dcresource.com:
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/sony/dsc_n1-review/preprod/gallery.shtml
