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DIGITAL CAMERA
| SONY CYBER-SHOT DSC-S60 |
| P17,999 | |
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Is this ugly duckling really a swan?
We've seen better-looking cameras before, so you can understand our disappointment when the S60 landed on our table. What ever happened to Sony's vaunted design chic? It's hard to believe that the same folks who designed the impressive F828 and the super slim T7 also made this clunker. It's not ugly, mind you, but neither are Princess Anne and Princess Stephanie of Monaco. They're just not Grace Kelly gorgeous, and neither is the S60, nosiree.
It may be a little unfair of us to impose such high design standards on a budget camera - and this is a budget camera, no doubt about it. In fact, for a budget camera, you get more than the usual. Aside from a quite decent 4-megapixel CCD and now-standard 3x optical zoom, you get a Carl Zeiss lens that turns out photos that are up to Sony's high standards, and 32MB of built-in memory. With built-in memory, you can still take pics even if you manage to leave your Memory Sticks at home. Handy in a tight spot, but 32MB isn't a lot. And take note, most budget cameras don't have built-in memory. Finally, true to its budget roots, the S60 works on AA batteries.
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4.1-megapixels. 3x optical zoom, 2x digital zoom. TTL Autofocus. ISO 80, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO auto. Movie mode (MPEG, 640x480 at 16 or 30fps). 32MB internal memory. 2 x AA batteries.
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Knock off a few grand more, and this would have been a real beauty.
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Don't expect much in terms of bells and whistles. The S60 is a straight point-and-shoot camera. Start up time is decent, but not super fast. Out of the box, we found the white balance to be wildly off, but a few adjustments later and all was well. The video mode takes movies at VGA quality (average) at 16 fps (mediocre again) or 30 fps (pretty slick). Putting photo stills and videos together, Sony managed to come up with Burst Mode - a setting that lets you take moving photos. We found this feature - again, far from budget territory - fun to use despite being practically useless.
When it comes to controls, the S60 is simplicity itself. A wheel on the shooting button lets you select your shooting mode (there are a handful of useful ones), playback, and video mode. The controls on the back of the camera are the same as most any Cyber-shot camera, so if you've used one before, you won't be lost here.
We were looking forward to cheap Sony goodness, but this camera manages to be everything but cheap at eighteen grand. Sure, it comes with some neat extras, but at that price, you may think twice. Budget cameras should have a budget price, right?
- JayJ Ramos
 Post your opinion or own review!
T3 Magazine Philippines - July 2005 Issue
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