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Just Tell Me What to Get: A Sub-$200 Cam

by S.E. Kramer on June 15, 2007 at 08:10 AM

Just Tell Me What to Get: A Sub-$200 Cam
A reader writes: I'm in the market for a new digital camera, but I don't want to spend more than $200. I don't care much about fancy add-ons like video -- I just want something that takes great pictures. And, it would be great if the camera fit in my pocket, too. Just tell me what to get!

Hey reader: Just about every major brand sells a camera for under $200, though none of the ones we tested were perfect. Our favorite is the Sony Cybershot DSCW55, which retails in most places for around $190. It's a compact, attractive, 7.2-megapixel camera with a 2.5-inch LCD, which is fairly generous at this price point. The camera turns on and off quickly and didn't bother us with long shutter lag. The DSCW55 also has an optical viewfinder, something that's difficult to find on cameras of this size -- even the more expensive ones. The viewfinder is priceless on very bright days when it's impossible to make out the image on an LCD -- we were grateful to have it on a trip to the beach -- and turning off the LCD conserves battery power if you don't want to re-charge on a week long vacation.

Most importantly, the DSCW55's images were among the best of the cameras we tried. Like all digital cameras these days, the DSCW55 comes with a lot of modes: for nighttime shooting, landscapes, portraits, video with sound, even snowy weather. But at this price range, cameras work best when you don't ask them to work too hard: The camera is at its most reliable in point-and-shoot mode, both with and without flash.

That's not to say that this is a perfect camera. All the cameras we tried were in the 7- to 8-megapixel range, but we found that you probably won't want to zoom in on their images like you might with 7-megapixel images from a pro-grade digital SLR, or even a point-and-shoot with a larger lens. Though our images were in focus, none were quite as sharp as we'd like. And though we felt that this Sony model led the pack, we wouldn't bring it on safari to Africa (especially since it only has a 3x optical zoom) or rely on it for those very special occasions where we're trying to get an image large enough to hang above the fireplace. For everything else, the Sony DSCW55 is more than serviceable: It's what we'd get if you gave us $200 to spend on a digital camera.

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