Sony Cyber-shot T · announced August 2008

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700: a photo album with a lens

Sold as the DSC-T700; we found no separate regional name.

In August 2008 Sony put a 3.5-inch touch screen and 4 GB of built-in memory into a 16.4 mm metal body and sold it as a pocket album. Imaging Resource gave it a Dave's Pick for exactly that; Reviewed found the album poorly implemented; Trusted Reviews treated it as a style purchase.

Launched

August 2008

Launch price

about $400 (UK £299)¹⁵¹⁰

Sensor

10.1 MP CCD

Lens

35–140 mm, 4×

Card

Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo

Battery

NP-BD1

Specs and sources

Meet the camera

The T700 is a slab of brushed aluminium, 95 by 58.4 by 16.4 millimetres,¹¹ weighing 159 grams with its battery in.⁵ Slide the front plate down and the camera wakes.⁴ Behind it, a Carl Zeiss 4x zoom, 35 to 140 mm in 35 mm terms, whose folded optics never leave the body,⁶ sits close to the top right corner as you face the camera⁶ in front of a 10.1-megapixel CCD.⁵ The back is almost all screen, 3.5 inches and 921,600 dots, with a quarter-inch of raised ribs to hold on to.⁴ Trusted Reviews thought it looked like a gadget from the future, and also found it slippery.¹⁰

Macworld reported on 7 August 2008 that Sony had announced the T700 and the T77 together, for September at about $400 and $300.¹ In Japan the T700 went on sale on 5 September at an open price, with an expected shop price of around ¥45,000, according to Digital Camera Watch.² Trusted Reviews listed £299 as the British recommended price and could not find it below £258.¹⁰

The T700 shares its camera block with the DSC-T77. Digital Camera Watch puts the difference at the built-in memory (4 GB against about 15 MB) and the screen (3.5 inches against 3, about 230,000 dots),² and Trusted Reviews judged the pictures indistinguishable from the T77's, problems included.¹⁰ Photo Review and Digital Camera Watch both call the T700 the successor to the T300; Photo Review says the zoom was cut from 5x to 4x, probably to make the body 5 mm thinner.¹¹²

Why this one was interesting

A photo album that happened to take pictures

Sony's pitch was storage. Imaging Resource listed 990 full-size pictures in the built-in memory and about 23,300 at VGA size,⁴ the Register repeated a 40,000-picture figure for the smallest size,¹² and Sony's Japanese page says the real capacity is about 3.71 GB, not 4.³ The plan was to keep full-size originals on a computer and push screen-sized copies back into the camera with Picture Motion Browser, Sony's bundled software.⁴⁶ Imaging Resource's Mike Pasini praised the way it was organised, with a calendar view, filters for faces, children, infants and smiles, an automatic scrapbook layout, and a password lock that covers playback and the USB connection. The same page calls the album the real reason to buy the camera, and the reason for its Dave's Pick.⁴ PhotographyBLOG called 4 GB the largest internal storage it had seen in a digital camera.⁶

Reviewed tried to set it up and was less charmed. The feature, it reported, gets only a passing mention in the manuals, is not automated, needs several settings changed in the software, does not work on a Mac, and hides the pictures in internal memory whenever a Memory Stick is in the slot.¹³ Imaging Resource's page calls the software a Windows application, though its specification table lists Windows and Mac OS;⁴⁵ we have not tried it.

Four controls, and the rest is a tap

Apart from the sliding front plate, the only physical controls were power, shutter, a zoom lever and playback, all on the top.⁴⁶ The touch screen split the reviewers. PhotographyBLOG found it one of the better ones, though more obedient to long fingernails than to fingertips, and noted that the included stylus was an alternative.⁶ Imaging Resource's test photographer thought it needed a sharp press and found the icons cluttered the frame.⁴ The Register called it temperamental, sometimes over-sensitive and sometimes needing several taps;¹² Photo Review needed several dabs for some settings;¹¹ Reviewed called it sluggish, though better than the Nikon Coolpix S60's.¹³ Trusted Reviews found it one of the better examples and complained instead about ragged, poorly smoothed text.¹⁰ The 921,600 dots were mostly spent on playback: PhotographyBLOG wrote that neither the live view nor the instant review uses the screen's full resolution,⁶ and Reviewed found the icons blurry.¹³

What it left out

You cannot set aperture or shutter speed;⁹ Reviewed called the stated one-second-to-1/1000 range mediocre.¹³ There is no custom white balance, which Imaging Resource, PhotographyBLOG and Reviewed all noted.⁴⁶¹³ Video stops at 640 by 480 pixels, and the camera outputs stills to an HD television but ships without the cable; Imaging Resource names a VMC-MHC1 cable and a CSS-HD2 cradle as the options.⁴ Burst mode, bracketing and the dynamic range optimiser all stop at ISO 400, Reviewed found.¹³ Pressing playback a second time does not switch the camera off; only the power button does.⁴

The dark: its weak point

Low light is where the reviewers who tested it agree most, with one exception. Imaging Resource's lab test ran into the camera's one-second longest exposure: at one foot-candle, about the level of city street lighting at night, the camera needed ISO 400 before the pictures were usable, though its focus assist let it focus in total darkness.⁴ Reviewed called its low-light performance sub-par, with low colour accuracy and high noise even at 60 lux, the light of two small lamps.¹³ PhotographyBLOG said the slowest shutter was apparently two seconds, in the Twilight scene mode.⁷ The Register, by contrast, said the camera coped well with fast-moving subjects and low light.¹²

On noise, the verdicts at ISO 400 point in opposite directions. PhotographyBLOG saw finely grained noise and said it would print ISO 400 at 18 by 24 cm without hesitation, and found ISO 3200 usable at 10 by 15 cm if the drop in saturation did not bother you.⁷ Trusted Reviews saw a sudden drop at ISO 400 and very heavy noise reduction.¹⁰ Imaging Resource found ISO 200 blurrier than ISO 400, rated ISO 800 good at 8 by 10 inches, and printed ISO 3200 acceptably at 4 by 6.⁴ Photo Review saw visible noise from ISO 800 and blotchiness at 3200.¹¹ Reviewed's well-lit test measured only about 2 percent noise at ISO 3200, but its automatic ISO chose 400 under bright studio lights.¹³

Real photographs taken with this camera. The sensitivity shown is recorded in each file's own EXIF data.

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The little wins

How it drew the picture

Imaging Resource's chart showed sharp lines to about 1,600 per picture height in both directions.⁴ Reviewed's chart gave 1,895 horizontally and only 674 vertically, a gap that surprised it and that it guessed might come from JPEG compression.¹³ The lens drew four different verdicts. Imaging Resource called the chromatic aberration strong at both ends of the zoom in its user report (its lab page says moderately high) and found soft corners, with 0.8 percent barrel distortion at wide angle and 0.6 percent pincushion at full zoom;⁴ Photo Review called the fringing moderate;¹¹ PhotographyBLOG saw some, less than it expected from a folded zoom;⁷ Trusted Reviews saw minimal aberration and good corner sharpness.¹⁰ On colour, Imaging Resource found strong reds and blues pushed a little and skin tones pinkish,⁴ Photo Review found reds lurid,¹¹ and Reviewed's colour test went very well, ahead of three of the four cameras it compared and behind only the Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS.¹³

Photos taken with this camera, from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each picture.

Where it let you down

The battery is the plainest complaint. Sony rates it at 200 shots,⁵ a figure Trusted Reviews found accurate, with a first charge lasting a couple of weeks of testing before the indicator reached its last bar;¹⁰ the Register managed about 150, many with flash, before recharging,¹² and Reviewed's was drained after a day of medium to heavy use.¹³ The flash split the reviewers three to two. Imaging Resource, PhotographyBLOG and Photo Review called it weak or modest, and Imaging Resource had to raise the ISO to 800 to reach Sony's claimed 4.3 metre range at wide angle;⁴⁵⁷¹¹ Reviewed called it small but very bright, and Trusted Reviews rated its range and coverage as excellent.¹³¹⁰ Four reviewers agree on red-eye in flash portraits: PhotographyBLOG, Trusted Reviews, the Register and Photo Review.^7101211

Handling suffers from the slab. Reviewed and PhotographyBLOG both warned that the lens sits so close to the corner that fingers cover it.¹³⁶ Reviewed found no clear difference between half and full shutter press, an off-centre tripod socket that blocks access to the battery and card on a tripod, a battery door that opens only a millimetre on its own, and a multi-connector port with no cover.¹³ Start-up times disagree: Imaging Resource timed 3.5 seconds to first shot, Reviewed about the same, Photo Review about 1.5 seconds, and Trusted Reviews under two.^4131110 Imaging Resource clocked shutter lag at 0.31 second at wide angle and 0.008 second when prefocused, but 4.3 seconds to switch from record to playback right after a shot.⁴ Price drew the sharpest remarks: Reviewed said that for a $400 camera "you could easily buy a camera that shoots better for significantly less", and set the $160 PowerShot SD1100 IS beside it; it also said the Panasonic Lumix TZ3, its highest-scoring compact, cost less than half as much.¹³

What the reviewers said in 2008-09

The timeline

• 7 August 2008Sony announces the T700 and T77; Macworld reports about $400 and $300 for September.¹²
• 5 September 2008Japanese sale date, open price.²
• September 2008Expected US release month, as Macworld and Imaging Resource give it; Imaging Resource's database lists 30 September.¹⁴⁵
• 6 October 2008Trusted Reviews' review.¹⁰
• 6 November 2008The Register's review.¹²
• 17 November 2008Imaging Resource's review is dated.⁴
• 23 February 2009PhotographyBLOG's review; its price was £289 or $330.⁶
• Later, undatedSony Japan's product page is marked production ended.³

Should you buy one now?

Buy one if you want a very thin metal compact with a huge screen and you will use it as an album, with decent light and a patient thumb. It launched at about $400;¹⁵ what it sells for now is a question for the sold listings, not for us. Before you bid, check these:

• The touch screen. Nearly every control is on it and reviewers found the response uneven,¹²¹³ so test every corner; we have not tested a unit.
• The slider. Sliding the front plate is what switches the camera on;⁴ check it moves cleanly. Imaging Resource noted Sony offered engraving, which it said makes resale hard, so look for a personalised plate.⁴
• The built-in memory. The camera should still show its internal memory; Sony says about 3.71 GB is usable.³ Reviewed said internal pictures cannot be viewed while a card is in the slot.¹³
• The battery. It takes an NP-BD1, rated at 200 shots,⁵ and the box held a BC-CSD charger.⁴ Buy a spare from Amazon ↗ once you have checked the code on yours.
• The card. It takes Memory Stick Duo and PRO Duo; PhotographyBLOG says video recorded to a card needs PRO Duo, and Photo Review says the 640 Fine setting does.⁶¹¹ See our Memory Stick guide and memory card glossary.
• The port and cable. Pictures and video leave through an uncovered multi-connector;¹³⁵ the box held a USB and AV cable.⁴ See the cable guide, and inspect the port for dirt.
• The software. The album needs Picture Motion Browser, and its Mac support is unclear.⁴⁵¹³

For the sibling that shares its sensor and lens, see our DSC-T77 retrospective; for an earlier slim T, our DSC-T100, which Reviewed called the T700's predecessor and found better in low light.¹³ If you are wondering why cameras like this are being hunted down again, we tell that story once, in Pictures that never left the card.

See recent sold prices on eBay ↗Shop on eBay ↗NP-BD1 battery ↗

Sources

1. Macworld, 'Sony expands Cyber-Shot digital camera line' by Peter Cohen (7 Aug 2008): announcement of the T700 and T77, September release, about $400 and $300
2. Digital Camera Watch (Impress, in Japanese), Sony DSC-T700 launch report (URL dated 2008/08/07): Japanese sale date 5 September, open price, lineage, smile-shutter changes
3. Sony Japan, archived DSC-T700 product page (in Japanese; marked 'production ended', open price): colours, built-in memory of about 3.71 GB, box contents
4. Imaging Resource, Sony DSC-T700 review by Mike Pasini and Stephanie Boozer (dated 11/17/08; lab tests; a Dave's Pick)
5. Imaging Resource, Sony DSC-T700 specifications page (lens, battery NP-BD1, CIPA 200 shots, timings, weight, built-in memory, available 2008-09-30, retail $400; its 'Touchscreen: No' entry contradicts the review and Sony)
6. PhotographyBLOG, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700 review by Zoltan Arva-Toth (23 Feb 2009), introduction and ease of use
7. PhotographyBLOG, T700 review, image quality page (noise, macro, flash, night, anti-shake)
8. PhotographyBLOG, T700 review, specifications page (lens, ISO, shutter, media, battery, weight)
9. PhotographyBLOG, T700 review, conclusion and ratings page
10. Trusted Reviews, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700 review by Cliff Smith (6 Oct 2008; UK recommended price £299)
11. Photo Review (Australia), Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700 (undated; Imatest results, specifications, overall 8.3 out of 10, RRP A$599)
12. The Register, 'Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700 compact camera' by George Cole (6 Nov 2008)
13. Reviewed.com, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700 review (undated; Imatest lab scores, handling, comparisons)
14. Digital Photography School, 'Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T700 [REVIEW]' by Barrie Smith (undated; short hands-on)

Photographs are credited under each one, all via Wikimedia Commons. A DPReview announcement item and a What Digital Camera review turned up in our searches but blocked our fetches, so nothing here comes from them. Links to eBay and Amazon are affiliate links.