SONY CyberShot DSC-W5 review

Sony is renowned for producing highly styled consumer electronics, but the DSC-W5 bucks the trend in that, however you look at it, it's not particularly attractive.

However, while the weighty, angular body is a little uncomfortable to hold, it feels reassuringly expensive.

A 5-megapixel sensor sits behind the W5's 3x zoom lens. At its highest setting the sensor takes photos at a resolution of 2,592x1,944, which is big enough to produce detailed A4 prints. The DSC-W5 has a viewfinder but, like those on most compact digital cameras, it's uncomfortably small and not particularly accurate. A much better option for composing your photos is the clear and bright 2.5" LCD screen. This is easily large enough for reviewing your photos or showing them to friends.

The W5 is pretty straightforward to use. All the buttons and dials are on the right-hand side of the camera, and the main controls lie under your thumb and forefinger. In theory you could use it with one hand, although in practice its weight means that two hands are better.

Auto mode improves ease of use by limiting your options to switching between single or burst modes, but Program and Manual modes open up a full range of custom settings. You can change exposure and auto focus modes, as well as settings for white balance, ISO, saturations, contrast and sharpness. Seven further scene modes help with a variety of lighting conditions and subjects. A solid macro mode is available, which enables you to focus on objects as close as 6cm in wide angle or 30cm in telephoto mode.

We were generally impressed by the quality of images produced by the DSC-W5. Exposure was correctly metered in almost every photo through a range of lighting conditions. In bright sunlight it produces rich, accurate colours with balanced contrast levels. There is little evidence of noise, even when shooting in low light. This is due in part to slightly overzealous smoothing, which in areas of low contrast can give pictures a painted look rather than a photographic finish.

The DSC-W5 has a functional movie mode. It encodes to MPEG1 at a resolution of 640x480 at 15fps, which is good enough for an email message or quick panorama view, but don't expect to be able to shoot a movie with it. The W5 has 32MB of internal memory for storing video and pictures, which is enough for up to 90 seconds of video or 12 photos at the maximum resolution.

The camera supports only Sony Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro memory cards. These are more expensive than the SD versions found in most other cameras, but we would highly recommend that you invest in one to get the most out of the camera.

A USB Hi-Speed interface connects the W5 to your computer, and Sony also supplies Picture Package, a basic image-editing and management tool. The W5 is supplied with two AA NiMH batteries, which last a decent length of time on a single charge, and you can also use standard AA batteries as a backup.

The CyberShot DSC-W5 has few flaws. While some people might find the rigorous smoothing annoying, the final image quality is very high, there is plenty of control for the enthusiast and pictures are well balanced. At £240 it's a little expensive, though, especially considering that Canon's PowerShot A95 is equally competent and is available for less than £200.