Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX150

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX150 ($249.99 direct) can slip into your pocket and capture sharp images in all kinds of light?a rare feat for a pocket camera. The 18-megapixel point-and-shoot squeezes a 10x zoom lens into a svelte body, and even lets you capture high-resolution stills and 1080i60 video simultaneously. Serious shooters may be turned off by its control layout, but the small camera is quite appealing to more casual photogs. As such, it ousts the Canon PowerShot Elph 310 HS ($259.99, 4 stars) as our Editors' Choice compact point-and-shoot camera.

Design and Features
The tiny WX150 is available in black, red, silver, and blue finishes. It measures just 2.25 by 3.75 by 0.9 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.7 ounces. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ7 ($199.99, 3 stars), another compact camera with a 10x zoom lens, is about the same weight, but slightly larger at 2.4 by 3.9 by 0.9 inches. The 3-inch display has a 460k-dot resolution?it's not as crisp as the 921k-dot panel found on the Nikon Coolpix P310 ($329.95, 4 stars), but it's bright, and you can see detail in images when reviewing them.

The 10x zoom lens covers a 25-250mm (35mm equivalent) range. This is a useful field of view, as it lets you capture wide landscapes and zoom in to grab a telephoto shot when needed. It isn't the fastest lens in the world?its aperture is f/3.3 on the wide end and f/5.9 zoomed all the way in. The Nikon P310 has a lesser 4.2x zoom range, but opens up to f/1.8 on the wide end and drops to f/4.9 when zoomed all the way in?capturing about four times the light than the WX150 at its widest angle.

There aren't a ton of physical controls packed onto the rear of the camera. Instead of a Mode dial, there's a toggle switch that lets you choose between Still, iSweep Panorama, and Movie modes. There aren't many actual shooting controls?just Drive mode, Flash control, and a Self Timer. The decision to separate the Self Timer and Drive Mode into two separate functions and omit the much more useful EV Compensation control is a questionable one, as even photographic novices can benefit from the ease of lightening or darkening a scene via this control.

Hitting Menu brings up an overlay display from which you can adjust ISO, EV Compensation, White Balance, and other settings. You can enter the full Menu from this display, which lets you adjust more esoteric settings. These include the sound output and menu color scheme?which can be set to black, white, or pink.

Performance and Conclusions
The WX150 is a speedy performer. It can start and shoot in 1.4 seconds and its shutter lag is so short that it's practically nonexistent. Instead of a standard continuous drive mode, the WX150 supports burst shooting. It can grab a burst of 10 shots with only 0.15-second between each photo, but requires 7.8 seconds to write them to a memory card. It outperforms the Canon PowerShot Elph 320 HS ($279.99, 3.5 stars)?that camera starts in 2.2 seconds, shoots a photo every 0.6-second, and records a 0.2-second shutter lag.

I used Imatest to measure the quality of the images captured by the WX150. The camera did quite well in terms of sharpness, resolving 2,125 lines per picture height?well in excess of the 1,800 lines required for a sharp photo. Images from the Sony are noticeably sharper than those captured by the Panasonic SZ7, which only managed 1,536 lines.

Imatest also measures the amount of noise in photos. Noise can detract from image quality if it gets above 1.5 percent, and some cameras compound the issue by applying too much noise reduction, which scrubs away image detail. The WX150 keeps noise under control through ISO 1600. The camera does lose a good amount of detail at that setting, so it's best to keep it set to ISO 800 when possible. The larger Nikon Coolpix P310 records 1.6 percent noise at ISO 1600, but captures a bit more detail?at ISO 800 the two cameras produce images that are very, very close in quality.

The WX150 records 1080i60 video in AVCHD format, although the output file is saved at 30 frames per second. The video quality is quite good?details are sharp and colors excellent. The camera is also capable of capturing 13-megapixel stills while recording video. Despite its small size, Sony managed to squeeze a mini HDMI port and micro USB port into the design. The latter doubles as the charging port for the camera?just plug the WX150 directly into a wall via the included AC adapter. There's no dedicated battery charger included, which can irk shooters who opt to buy a second battery. In addition to standard SD, SDHC, and SDXC memory cards, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, and Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo cards are supported.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX150 is an impressive camera. It's small enough to take anywhere, produces sharp photos, does well at higher ISO settings, and carries a very reasonable sticker price. As such, it earns our Editors' Choice award for compact point-and-shoot cameras. It's an excellent choice for casual snapshooters who value image quality, but more advanced shutterbugs may be turned off by its lack of control. If that's the case, you should give the Nikon Coolpix P310 close consideration?it's a bit larger, but also produces excellent images and has a good number of physical controls and a fast f/1.8 lens.

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