Sony DSCWX350 18 MP Digital Camera (White)

Perfect first camera. Made me enjoy photography. This is my first real camera after years of using a phone, and I’m really glad I chose this one. It’s small, easy to use, and makes shooting feel more intentional compared to a phone. Pros: • Great image quality in daylight • Natural colors and texture (not over-processed) • Very portable, easy to bring everywhere • Fun to use and encourages learning photography Cons (expected): •Low-light performance is just okay •You need to learn basic exposure to avoid blown highlights •App transfer works, but SD card reader is better for original files Overall: A great choice for beginners who want a compact camera that feels “real” without being overwhelming. Highly recommended as a first camera.

This is a great SMALL camera that was perfect for me! I am unable to use my right hand and arm for things that require them to be raised at all. Therefore, it was perfect for my left hand. I could hold the camera, turn it on, adjust the zoom, function the automatic focus and snap the photo, still being able to see most of the 1080 screen to make sure I'm getting the scene I really want. In a recent cruise down the Rhine River, and to Lucern, Switzerland, my wife and I took 633 photos on this camera, and very few were out of focus, or not what we wanted to photograph. I wish I had ordered it sooner than I did. There are so many cameras in the category of Compact Digital, and, wanting to get as much camera as I could, spent too much time second guessing myself. But Let me be very clear on this: I AM NOT SORRY I PURCHASED THIS CAMERA! We have an older digital camera, and while it isn't even close to this one, it did help me to get going with my picture taking. In fact, that was our guide to a lot of what we knew how to do. It wasn't until we got home that I discovered the "sweep panorama" ability That would have given us such beautiful photos along the Rhine River and in so many other places. How soon should I have ordered it? We got it on May 23, and we left to fly to Amsterdam on May 30. And I don't think of myself as a "quick study". There wasn't enough manual with the camera to guide me to the best features, panoramic photos, Pixel Gross:21.1 MP, a 20.4 megapixel Exmor R CMOS image sensor, and tons of other specs I have no idea what they mean, but I love them when I see them, and I discovered many on the fly. One I discovered when we got home, and love, is WI-FI that allowed it to download all the pictures to my iMac when I got close enough. WOW! Cool! It fits in my shirt pocket. And was so reasonably priced at Amazon. Would I order it again if I could do it over? YOU BET I WOULD!!

Started out taking good photos, but after having it for a few months, it does not take good photos at all. Action shots are blurry and flash makes people look either too white or orangey. Very disappointed. Update 12/15/14: Took my camera out to use it this Saturday and half of the screen is white and the camera will not take pictures anymore. I am so disappointed in this expensive camera. Got 4 months out of it... Update 8/18/15: Never heard back from sony about my screen and of course the warranty is out now. I replaced it myself 3 months ago and now I am getting an e.91.01 error saying there's an internal error. piece of crap camera. poor photo quality and just a headache!

I purchased this camera as a supplemental to my Olympus DSLR. I love the DSLR but it's just too bulky when I just want to snap pictures during vacation and I need something small and un-obtrusive. This camera fits the bill perfectly for those times. Start-up time, focusing time and overall operation is really quick for a compact camera. The build quality seems to be really good. I've been using it for a couple weeks now and have taken well over 1000 pictures and I'm very pleased with performance and picture quality. If you just need a camera to take good quality pics for saving on your computer or posting online or emailing to others this camera will suit you nicely. I've taken pictures in full sunlight and dead of night with just lighting from store fronts and the moon. The quality of the pics during day time are more than I expected and the quality of the pics at night is quite good as well. I've also used it to take pics of fast moving objects (cars and motorcycles) and they were captured nicely without blur. I do have a few complaints about the camera that most people won't care about. - There's no aperture or shutter priority mode. Aperture priority mode would be really nice for portraits. - There is no flash compensation mode. The flash can be overwhelming and wash out the subject if you're too close. - Exposure compensation mode is not easy to get to. - No raw mode. As mentioned there are very few times when most people would ever use these options on this type of camera, but they would make the camera more attractive for budding professionals or advanced amateurs. I personally can't see where I'd ever need a zoom more than the 20x this camera offers. The newest compacts coming out with 30x zoom would be of no use to me. I think the 30x zoom is just a marketing thing and most people would never need something that zooms that close. If it's more than 20x away you might better walk a little closer to your subject. But I will say even when zoomed in at 20x the image quality was great. The anti-shake works excellent on this camera. The battery life seems to be quite good. I think I've gotten somewhere around 400 pictures on a single charge. I haven't taken any movies with it so I can't comment on the quality of the movies. I also had no problems connecting it to my home access point and transferring pictures to my computer via wireless network. All in all it's a great camera for those that want something compact to hold in a pocket or small case when not in use. It has worked great for me on my vacation to Key West, Disney World and Universal Studios in Florida.

UPDATE June 11, 2016 I Have been extra careful with this camera. AS you see below the lenses are cheap plastic and scratch VERY easily. I just noticed I have a scratch on one of the NEW lenses. I love the camera but hate the lenses. I do not know what I ma going to do but until they improve the quality of the lenses think twice before you buy. April 2016 UPDATE. Still love the cameras BUT this is my second one. As you can read below I had issues with the first on. Turns out the lens is made of plastic so it scratches really easy. I was very careful but still camera #1 would up with two "spots" on the lens. I purchase camera #2 because I really do like them and with in a few months it had 2 "spots" on the lens. Now I had 2 expensive camera that had bad lens. I have a friend that is good a fixing things so he ordered two replacement lens at $50.00 each from EBay and fix both cameras for $20.00 so I have two working cameras for $120.00. I am being REALLY careful with them and we will see how long the lens last this time. But the cameras are great (except for the plastic easily damage lens) and I am glad I now have a back up just in case. below is photo showing the two "spots" in the second cameras photos before we changed lens. Second is after new lens (although you cannot tell if it is fixed because the background is dark) 3rd photo is zoomed, great photos for standing taking photos from almost 1/4 mile away. The photos this camera takes are beautiful. I really like the camera and it takes great photos even when I am using the 20X zoom. The only down part is it has a flimsy cover (much like the old cell phones) to protect the port fro the USB cord. I can see where this will not last long. It is suppose to be wireless so I need to Call Sony as the emails and product manual are not helping. Will give further feed back when I get it hooked up wirelessly April 2, 2015 6 months later. The camera was great to begin with but then about 2 months ago photos began to blur. No about 3 out of 7 photos are blurry no matter what I do. Then the shutter that covers the lens when you shut off camera quit opening up all the way. So now I have to check my camera each time to make sure the shutter is completely open or I wind up with these funky looking photo. I am really disappointed because I like the camera and the 20 X zoom was great. April 18, 2015 Maybe I was a bit hasty with complaint. I finally went online to see why the lens shutter/cover was not opening completely. One suggestion was sand or dust had gotten under it and to use the vacuum on it to suck out sand or dust!! Well I was at the end of my rope so I figured why not? Turn camera on, extend lens, place upside down and apply vacuum hose to it. IT WORKED!!!! now my photos are not blurring so I am guessing I was so frustrated with the shutter not opening all the way I was not as careful as I should have been when taking photos.

Unbelievably difficult wifi/transfer. This is the most frustrating piece of technology I've encountered in quite a while. What should be a simple thing has been bloated and complicated beyond belief by Sony. I spent hours trying to figure out how to transfer photos with wifi, and it basically doesn't work. You have to install Sony's PlayMemories software on the devices you want to use it. The computer app download is over 230mb! May I remind you that this is larger than hard drives used to be not that long ago. On my fast Windows7 desktop with state-of-the-art i7 processor, it took about 15 minutes to install the software after it was downloaded from Sony's site (which was an exercise to achieve itself because the installer won't wait for me to allow the connection through the firewall - once it's blocked initially, it will never finish and just hang). I did finally get it installed. You have to connect the camera via USB cable to the computer before you can connect it by wifi. Once I finally got it connected by wifi, it was unbelievably slow. My router allows me to view wireless device status and rates - the camera - just a couple of feet from the router - had a usable but poor signal. When I put it within inches of the router, the signal was good, but still the highest transmit rate out of the camera was 1mbps. This meant it took a long time just to show the files on the camera, and when I tried to transfer a 1-minute video file - well, I waited 10 minutes and gave up. When I gave up, the camera pretty much locked up and was in an unusable state - I could get to settings and some of the menu items, but it would not go into playback or camera mode. I had to remove the battery. Transferring to my supported Nexus smartphone (it's on the Sony list) was not much better. All the NFC does is tell the phone to start the similarly poor PlayMemories Mobile App and connect to the camera which becomes a Wifi AP. My phone connected to the camera, but then basically nothing else happened - the camera is stuck on 'connecting' and the phone is stuck on 'connecting'. I was never able to do any of the control the camera functions from the phone. I was able once or twice to actually get an image from the camera to the phone - by manually disconnecting/reconnecting to the camera AP, but the why or how of what would make it work was never evident. 100% sure it never works the way it is "supposed" to. And in the process of doing this, the phone would DISABLE access to my home wifi AP - so I'd have to manually reconnect phone otherwise would be using LTE mobile data! Totally unusable. As a camera - I can't really say much - I tried taking some pictures, and it has a lot of options and it might take decent pictures - not really sure. But one of the main reasons I bought this was to simplify transfer of pictures and it is not only complicated, for me it is totally unusable. I tried to call Sony Support (a non-toll-free "Florida" phone number) - the call goes to the Philippines and they must be using some VoIP technique to save data - the audio quality was so bad that I found it nearly impossible to understand the girl I was talking to. I didn't get to the point of even being able to ask my questions because first she wanted all my information and it was nearly impossible to make out what she was saying. I hung up and called back - but same thing. I waited a while to try again, and then the call was answered with low-quality music that never stopped. Maybe all people were busy talking, but the call wasn't answered with any voice at all - just music! I give up. **UPDATE Feb 2015** I decided to keep the camera, and as a camera I like it. I still am unhappy with the wifi transfer/software issue, but have been able to use it - I use a firewall with my phone and turns out the firewall was blocking [part of] the communications needed for the wifi transfer. It's multiple apps/processes - pretty much I have to disable the firewall altogether on the phone to use wifi transfer (and remember to re-enable it when I'm finished). So, I'm revising my rating from 1 to 3 stars.

Haven't used the camera too much to date, however of the pictures I've taken outdoors, all have had great color and detail.. The 20X zoom is spectacular even without a tripod. Picture detail is exquisite. Shutter speed is fast capturing motion in subjects without blurring and without special camera adjustments. Night shots I have taken have turned out great. The auto settings are all I have used so far and have worked great both closeup and telephoto shot.Looking forward to experimenting with some of its more advanced settings, so far I have been hard pressed to find an occasion to need them. Haven't tried the panoramic or movie features as yet.. If you are looking for a great point and shoot camera I would highly recommend this camera. Very easy to use, small, light weight and feels solidly built. Great bang for the buck.

Pros: Size 20X Optical zoom (40X Digital) Excellent battery life Good image quality Very good image stabilizer HD movies Cons: LED screen can be hard to see in bright sunlight. No viewfinder This camera is easy to use. For those who want to shoot nice photos without fuss just choose the automated setting you prefer and forget about it. I find the automatic settings produce very good results over all. I think either the Intelligent Auto or Superior Auto (higher quality) setting will produce acceptable results in almost all situations. For movies just press the movie button on the top rear of the camera to begin recording and press it again to stop. It's as simple as that. I have found the auto focus to be quick and accurate under varying conditions. The only exception to this may be long telephoto shots in minimal light. For non telephoto shots in low light the camera has an auto focus illuminator which lights for a second to establish focus. This works well. The camera controls are easy to use and have a nice feel to them.. It took a little while for me to get acquainted with Sony's menu system, but once you get the hang of where they put things, it's ok. Frequently adjusted settings such as flash on / off, single shot / burst mode and what info is displayed on the screen and can be selected quickly with one tap on the control wheel on the back of the camera with no need to go into the menus. Shooting still photos couldn't be easier. Aim and press the button, the camera does the rest. The camera produces good images. About Movies. A couple of things I noticed. The sound of the zoom motor that is picked up by the camera is minimal in my opinion. More noticeable was noise in the form of little clicks and squeaks introduced by my fingers physically handling the camera and operating the telephoto zoom switch. Considering the small size of the camera and the close proximity of your hands, controls and the microphones I think that most cameras of this type are going to pick up some sounds. With careful attention to your hands on the camera while shooting movies you should be able to minimize the amount of noise you introduce by physically handling the camera controls. The camera also has a wind noise reduction setting for shooting movies. It seems to be effective. I expected that the image quality of the camera at 20X zoom and especially at 40X (20X optical, 20X digital zoom) would be marginal at best. To my surprise I found that the image stabilization works exceptionally well and that hand held shots at 20X are quite acceptable, even at 40X you can anticipate acceptable results. I shot hand held videos of a hummingbird at a feeder at 30X and the video came out clear and in focus. Amazing. The manual states the camera can use SDHC or SDXC memory cards. When researching which camera to buy, I found conflicting information on various sites whether the SDXC cards were supported. I am happy to report that they are. I am using an SDXC Class 10, 80MB read/write speed, 64GB capacity card with no problems. I would recommend a fast card that can keep up with writing to the card while recording HD movies or taking burst shots. I have not experienced any problems using this card. The manual states that the camera has been tested to accept up to 64GB SDHC or SDXC cards. Implying that it may or may not support larger capacity cards. If you think 64GB may not be enough capacity for you, I might suggest buying extra 64GB cards rather than chancing a larger (and more expensive) card. The camera has a solid feel to it. Some reviews felt that the camera was so small that it was difficult to hold. I do not find this to be the case. I have large hands and have had no problems in that area. I purchased a separate Sony battery charger (Model No. BC-TRX) so I could be charging a battery while using the other battery in the camera. As for charge times. The initial charge using the camera to charge the battery took about 2 ½ hours. Using the Sony battery charger took about 2 hours to fully charge the battery. The difference in charge times may or may not be due to the amount of charge, if any, in the new battery to begin with. I don't have a need for WiFi, so I can't comment on that feature. For those who don't want to deal with a lot of manual settings to take good pictures, this camera should serve you well. If you want or need more manual control over your picture taking this likely isn't the camera for you. AN ADDITIONAL NOTE ON FLASH PHOTOS. Taking a flash photo that is very close to the subject, in my instance about 6", the cameras extended lens casts a small arched shadow in the lower left corner of the picture as it blocks the output of the flash in that direction. Otherwise, the picture taken this close with flash had a good exposure, not too bright or washed out as might be suspected. It looked good.