Sony Cybershot DSC-H5

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 2 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Price Paid:  $450.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
DO NOT PURCHASE THIS CAMERA!! The shutter button problem hit us one month and 5 days after the warranty expired. The button just fell off after taking a picture. Sony advised us that they "do not acknowledge non-Sony websites" when I told them about the failure rate of the button, and how many other people have had the same issue, and that "they were unaware of any problem with the DSC-H5 shutter button"....and to top it off, they stated that it would be $181.00 to fix it!!

However, it does take great pictures with endless settings (when the button does not fall off). Love the 3 inch LCD, nice and bright!

Strengths:
Huge LCD
Tons of settings for all conditions
Crystal clear pictures with great color
Battery life from the standard Sony batteries is good

Weaknesses:
SHUTTER BUTTON FALLS OFF, AND SONY DOESN'T CARE!
Instruction booklet is like a small book...
Not a small/slim camera

Customer Service:
Horrible...

sbarter

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Terrible flaw in design makes this camera unusable. The shutter button stops working when pressed halfway down, or completely falls off. There are hundreds of reported cases of this happening, so please research before considering this camera. People that get it repaired under warranty end up having the same problem return, usually very shortly. On my camera the button stopped working correctly within the first few months of use.

Strengths:
Nice lens. If not for the button problem it would take nice sharp pictures.

Weaknesses:
The shutter button appears to have a very high failure rate, and Sony does not seem to address the problem other than repairing with the same part that will fail again.

Similar Products Used:
Olympus DSLR
Canon Powershot
Konica Minolta A2

Customer Service:
Have not tried it myself but from what I hear it's not so great.

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Do not buy this product if you want to be able to use the "half-button" down for focus before you take your picture feature of ALL other cameras. Mine broke almost immediately. Seriously annoying for the money I paid for this thing.

Otherwise...it is a good camera.

Strengths:
Robust, does well with dust and rough use, good picture quality and nice big LCD. Lasts a long time on rechargeable batteries.

Weaknesses:
1/2 button auto focus problem is a huge one for me. I cannot take action shots with this thing anymore.

Similar Products Used:
DSC-H2

mlromero13

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I am from argentina. I really like the camera but I am really dissapointed with the shutter button. In febrary, i bought a H2 and stoppped lockin de focus after a month. Later the place in which I bougth It, change the machine for a new h2, but after a month again began the problem. I really argued with the seller, then we made a deal. Lets change it for a H5 (I paid the difference).

Guess what! I am having the same problem, and they ask me to send to the service in USA, but I am afraid that the problems start again.

Also I´d have to wait like 2 months!!!!

Please, let me now what do you think, I read to much similar cases in the web, but no solution.
greetings.

DIEGO, SI LEES ESTO CONTACTAME knwmax@yahoo.com

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 2 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5,
1 votes

Price Paid:  $500.00 from on - line

Summary:
The zoom is great. But it eats batteries fast due to that nice big screen. My largest complaints are: zooms good- but what were they thinking when you need to manually focus a camera on an automatic setting and WHAT made them put the control in a place where you need poke yourself in the eye and smear the screen with your thumb, when you use it? Unless you're a computer freak, don't touch this baby and if you install the software that comes with it- you'll be sorry! Really really sorry. You'll end up with a ton of files with red circles with x s for duplicated files and you can't delete them. And if you make the further mistake of installing their 'upgrade' to 'Picture motion viewer' you'll be even sorrier. Whatever order you had realized will be absolutely scrambled and the red x boxes will be replaced with grey boxes with x s you can't delete.

I would NOT recomend this camera- you want zoom go Nikon.

Strengths:
Has no strengths that can't be had in another camera.
Price, I guess.

Weaknesses:
Hateful software is the worst.

Similar Products Used:
Canon with less zoom. An instamatic, so to speak. No complaint on that one. I needed the zoom, so I tried the Sony. It's cheapest in its class, for this much zoom, but now I know why!

Customer Service:
I can't find any info on how to correct the software- but the internet is full of people crying over this same problem with the software...............