The Sony Cybershot DSC W210 packs plenty of power with its 12 megapixel sensor. This camera is small enough to fit into most pockets. It is available in silver, dark grey, pink and green. The Cybershot DSC W210 has a 4x optical zoom lens.
For most purposes you are likely to find the 12 megapixels overkill. Even if you are looking to make large prints you should find 6 to 8 megapixels plenty unless you are looking to go up to poster size and beyond. If you were planning to do that then the likelihood is you would be looking to invest in a more expensive and better quality camera anyhow.
To me the big advantage of having so many megapixels is that Sony has included a feature called smart zoom. This allows you to increase the amount of zoom available as long as you are prepared to sacrifice some of the megapixels you shoot at. In the past I have even found that shooting at lower megapixels can increase the quality of the images you shoot. Other advantages include taking up less space on a memory card and faster times to upload your photos to a computer. If you activate smart zoom you can increase zoom up to 25x. This may be overkill as at that setting you can only capture pictures for playback on a computer or television screen, but there are plenty of steps in the middle where you can find the right balance between print size and zoom.
The Cybershot DSC W210 fits into a group of pocket cameras that are less expensive than the top of the range models. The main reasons behind the savings tend to be the design of the cameras and the build quality. If you do not mind a fairly plain looking digital camera then you can save yourself plenty of money.
In terms of features there is not that much to choose between this camera and some of the more expensive ones. The 2.7 inch LCD screen compares well enough and the only obvious feature I can think of that is missing here is mechanical image stabilisation. This is where image stabilisation is handled either by gyroscopes in the lens or by making tiny shifts to the position of the sensor.
Aside from this Sony has incorporated some of the latest buzz features. These include face detection for sharper portraits and a smile shutter that automatically fires off a shot when the Cybershot DSC W210 detects someone is smiling. I have never noticed face detection making that much difference to a portrait shot and only you can decide how much value a smile shutter adds to the camera for you. Something you do not often see on a camera this size is the ability to add conversion lenses. This can improve the telephoto or wide angle capabilities of the camera. In order to do this you also need to buy a lens adapter.
The camera is able to produce High Definition still images, but it can only output standard definition movies.
On the whole I found the camera easy to use. Sony lays out its menus in a sensible way. They are icon rather than text based, but text does show up as you scroll through the icons.
When it comes to picture quality the Cybershot DSC W210 does a solid job. I cannot claim the pictures it produces are anything out of the ordinary, but on the whole the camera does a decent all round job if you are looking for a general snapshot camera with a reasonable price tag.
Similar cameras you may wish to take a look at include the Panasonic Lumix FS6, Panasonic Lumix FS7, Panasonic Lumix FS15 and the Olympus FE-5000.
