Sony Cybershot DSC-P93

My wife bought me this camera for Christmas. After taking a few shots, I dropped the camera in a padded case about four feet to a carpeted floor. The minimal impact caused the LCD display to malfunction. The problem was not covered by either the store's extended service plan or the Sony warranty. Sony wanted more then the cost of the new camera to repair it!! One of their customer service representatives actually told my wife to "treat the camera like you would a TV!" Well, I typically don't take my TV skiing, hiking or boating with me! Poor product, poor organization, poor customer service. I will never buy a Sony product again!

Lots of features

VERY fragile LCD display, very small icons and display information - need at least 20/20 vision to see, poor customer service through Sony

Olympus and Canon - I would recommend either of these over the Sony. Since my Sony broke within the first month of use and Sony wanted more than the cost of a new camera to fix it, I bought the Canon Powershot A95 and I love it.

As poor as it gets - rude and combative. Absolutely unwilling to imagine that their camera might have been at fault!

I have the Canon Digital Rebel (love it!), and I wanted a pocketable go-anywhere camera that also takes high-quality movies as a companion. AND, it HAD to have fast shutter response. I have a toddler, and I don't want to miss anything due to a slow camera. This camera seemed to fit the bill, based on reviews I read. I really wasn't happy with the image quality. Let me say, I am way pickier than most and I'm spoiled by my Canon. I just felt the images from the P93 screamed "DIGITAL"! Since I'm not a pro, I don't know how to adequately describe it, so I guess I would say the images are overly contrasted and the highlights are "blown out". The camera has a setting for lower contrast but I thought those images looked flat. The indoor flash pictures were very warm; if you looked at a person's face you could see they looked yellower than in real life. Weirdly, I took a picture of my daughter next to our Christmas tree, and the tree colors were accurate, it being a blue pine, but she looked too yellow. Overall, the flash seemed too bright. I didn't have much luck editing the pictures in Adobe Photoshop or MS Picture It!; it was like the tree and the kid needed different adjustments. Really, I want a point-and-shoot camera that does just that: point-and-shoot. I don't want to worry about setting flash levels, exposure compensation, and white balance. I never mess with that on my Canon; I really only have it for great image quality and fast reponse.

Very fast shutter response. High resolution, high fps videos.

Poor image quality. Memory stick media expensive.

Does this count the Digital Rebel? Way better, although more expensive and obviously bulkier.

I can't comment on Sony, since I haven't had to call them, but returning the camera to Walmart wasn't fun. Admittedly, this is the week after Christmas, so things are busier. After waiting in line for a while, I had to go wait in line in the photo department so they could check the contents of the box, then go back to the customer service department to get my refund. Meanwhile, all the people in line thought I'd just shown up and barged in front!