Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 review

Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-T77 certainly stands out from the crowd.

It's a slender 15mm thick and available in five colours, including green and pink. A 3in touch screen virtually fills the back of the camera; there are buttons only for power, shutter release, zoom and playback. Its size makes it easy to slip into a pocket. However, its slim battery gives just 220 shots per charge, and its size and shape mean it's hard to hold the camera steady.

It feels responsive, capturing a photo every 1.9 seconds without flash, and 2.5 seconds with flash. However, we found that navigating menus with the touch screen wasn't as quick or as straightforward as using physical buttons. We preferred the Sony T2's 2.7in touch screen (What's New, Shopper 243), but we're not sure whether this screen isn't as responsive or if we're just becoming less patient with unorthodox control systems. Either way, the T77's touch screen won't please everyone.

This is yet another camera with a 10-megapixel, 1/2.3in sensor. Regular readers will note that this type of sensor has been driving us slowly insane over the past six months, with its penchant for vague fine details in bright conditions and grubby splodges in dim lighting. Still, compared to the many other similarly specified cameras, the T77 wasn't bad. Colours were rich and vibrant, and indoor shots at ISO 400 were good enough for viewing on a PC monitor. The 4x zoom provides a little extra magnification over the more usual 3x designs, and it exhibited excellent sharpness in the corners at both wide-angle and telephoto settings. The sensor-based stabilisation worked well, although not as reliably as Canon's, Nikon's or Panasonic's systems.

The T77's mediocre picture quality isn't unusual, but there are far cheaper cameras that produce better results, such as Samsung's NV8. However, if a super-slim camera with a touch screen appeals to you, this isn't a terrible choice.