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Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W130 (silver)

Manufacturer: Sony Part number: DSC-W130/S

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$149.72 - $209.99 at 8 online stores

CNET Editor rating:
3.5 stars Very good
Average user rating: 4.5 stars out of 1 review

More product information:: Editors' review; User reviews; Specifications; Product series; Manufacturer info

Bottom Line:: The W130's quick performance and decent image quality make it a solid follow-up to the W90, and a good choice for a pocket point-and-shoot camera.
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CNET editors' review

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W130 (silver)

price range: $149.72 - $209.99

Reviewed by: Will Greenwald
Reviewed on: 02/21/2008

The good: Fast shutter; slightly longer-than-normal lens; handy on-camera editing and slide show functions

The bad: Softening around edges; noisy at ISO 800 and higher

The bottom line: The W130's quick performance and decent image quality make it a solid follow-up to the W90, and a good choice for a pocket point-and-shoot camera.

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Sony inches its Cyber-shot W-series of compact snapshot cameras forward with the Cyber-Shot DSC-W130. This 8-megapixel shooter sports a shiny, colorful new shell and a slightly longer lens, but otherwise feels like a carbon copy of its predecessor, the Cyber-shot DSC-W90.

Rounded corners and an attractive brushed metal front plate give the W130 a more stylish look than the W90. Available in silver, black, and pink, it offers some choices for gadget color coordination (though not as much as its 7-megapixel little brother, the DSC-W120, which comes in black, silver, pink, and blue). Besides the new look, the W130 gets a tweaked control layout from the W90. While it still uses irritatingly small, circular buttons for menu control, the buttons are laid out comfortably around the camera's direction pad and feel much more accessible to large-thumbed users.

Despite the makeover, the W130 offers few differences from its predecessor. The camera's 32mm- to 128mm-equivalent, f/2.8-5.8 lens is the only significant upgrade, offering a slightly longer zoom and wider angle than the W90's 35mm- to 105mm-equivalent lens. The W130 keeps the W90's 8-megapixel resolution, 2.5-inch LCD, and optical viewfinder. It also includes the W90's face detection function with Smile Shutter, a handy mode that lets the camera automatically take pictures of subjects when they smile. It gets a slight downgrade in the internal memory department, carrying only 15MB of space instead of the W90's 31MB. Of course, you should never rely on internal memory, so either camera would require you to pick up a Memory Stick Duo for shooting more than a handful of photos.

A generous set of onboard photo retouching and viewing features lets you tweak the photos you shoot with the W130. The camera can trim and rotate (in 90-degree increments) your pictures after you take them, and digitally remove red eyes. It can also apply sharpening, soft focus, and a variety of other effects to adjust your pictures. Most of these effects feel more like silly toys than useful features, but they can still be fun to play with. The W130 can also display photo slide shows with MP3 music soundtracks, either on the camera itself or (with an optional cable or cradle) on your HDTV.

The W130 performed quickly in our lab tests, with the exception of its flash, which took a long time to recycle. After a 1.8-second wait from power-on to first shot, the camera could capture a new picture once every 1.4 seconds with the onboard flash turned off. With the flash enabled, however, that wait doubled to 2.8 seconds. The shutter feels pleasantly responsive, lagging only 0.4 second with our high-contrast target and 1 second with our low-contrast target. In continuous shooting mode, the W130 captured 15 full-resolution shots in 7.5 seconds for a respectable rate of 2 frames per second.

Pictures taken with the W130 look good, though noise and softness can hinder picture quality and limit printability for photos taken at ISO 800 or higher. At lower sensitivity levels, fine details appear clearly, despite some slight softening around the edges of pictures. Noise, and Sony's noise reduction, begins to lower sharpness noticeably at ISO 400, though colors stay vibrant and the effect on prints is minimal. Noise becomes prominent at ISO 800, and at ISO 1600 grain consumes the picture. At the camera's maximum of ISO 3200, photos look like they were painted onto felt, with heavy fuzz ruining all fine lines. The W130's lens showed just the slightest amount of pincushion distortion (bending toward the center of the frame) at the telephoto end, but wide-angle shots have noticeable barrel distortion. The camera's automatic white balance does a good job of neutralizing colors in fluorescent or incandescent lighting, though it leaves a subtle warmth to the latter. Our extremely yellow tungsten lights flummoxed the system, however, that's not out of the ordinary even for much more expensive cameras.

With a quick shutter and a shiny, attractive shell, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W130 makes a very good pocket point-and-shoot camera. Its 4x lens gives it a slightly longer reach than most other compact cameras in its price range, and its onboard editing and slide show features are helpful when you want to tweak and share your shots. Its photos aren't quite as sharp as they could be, but they're more than suitable for respectable (8 inch x 10 inch) prints, e-mailing, and posting on the Web.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W90

1.3

1.8

0.4

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W130

1.4

1.8

0.4

Canon PowerShot SD870 IS

1.6

0.9

0.4

Fujifilm FinePix F40fd

2.5

1.1

0.5

Nikon Coolpix S51c

3.4

4.1

0.9

Typical continuous-shooting speed (frames per second)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W130

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W90

Canon PowerShot SD870 IS

1.3

Nikon Coolpix S51c

0.9

Fujifilm FinePix F40fd

0.5

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User reviews

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Average user rating: 4.5 stars out of 1 review
My rating: 0 stars

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9 stars

Excellent Point & Shoot!

by JmaxJpeg on May 15, 2008

Pros: Good photo quality; compact & well-built.

Cons: Limited manual controls - as expected.

Summary: I bought the DSC-W130 for its compact size, build quality, and good photo results. When I don't want to lug around my dSLR, I can easily carry the W130. ...

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Summary: I bought the DSC-W130 for its compact size, build quality, and good photo results. When I don't want to lug around my dSLR, I can easily carry the W130. It's always with me. (Sony offers a variety of cases and pouches.) Granted, it's not equal to a dSLR in photo quality, but for an 8 mega-pixel point and shoot, it produces very good photos up to 8x10, including a little internal cropping. While manual controls are limited, it does have a wealth of scene modes and presets that make quick grab-shots all the easier. I particularly appreciate the optical view finder. It's a bit small, but that's better than none at all. Battery life is much better than I expected. And I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the videos it produces (MPEG1 - which are easily edited). It won't replace you video camera, but the quality is good none-the-less. I've been taking pictures for 40+ years, and for me this is a great second camera that I can easily carry and for getting those quick shots when they pop up unexpectedly. It's also a great all around camera for inexperienced users (like my wife), with great point and shoot simplicity. The CNET review was right on target regarding its specifications, limitations, and capabilities. Top notch photos, great quality, and a decent price. In my book - highly recommended!
Updated
Here is a sample of one of my pictures taken with the W130. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmaxjpeg/2486531048/

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3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

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Specifications

Manufacturer: Sony
Part number: DSC-W130/S
Description: Get is all from one powerful point and shoot. The DSC-W130 Cyber-shot digital camera delivers Smile Shutter technology for automatically capturing smiles as they happen and lets you share them beautifully in HD. You can expect stunning detail, thanks to 8.1 megapixel resolution and a Carl Zeiss 5x optical zoom lens. Plus, Sony's Face Detection technology controls focus, exposure, and color on up to eight individual faces, resulting in more accurate, natural skin tones. Whether displayed on the 2.5" LCD screen or your HDTV, the DSC-W130 conveys your vision with precision and style.

General
Product Type Digital camera - Compact
Color Silver
Weight 4.3 oz
Width 3.5 in
Depth 0.9 in
Height 2.2 in
Main Features
Resolution 8.1 megapixels
Image stabilizer feature Optical stabilization helps prevent blurry pictures, especially for handheld cameras at slow shutter speeds or when using high optical zoom. This camera utilizes built-in Super SteadyShot stabilization to assist in taking sharper pictures.
Sensor resolution 8.1 megapixels
Optical Sensor Type Super HAD CCD
Effective Sensor Resolution 8.1 megapixels
Optical Sensor Size 1/2.5 in
Light Sensitivity ISO 200, ISO 800, ISO auto, ISO 400, ISO 3200, ISO 1600, ISO 100
Digital Zoom 2 x
Shooting Modes Frame movie mode
Shooting Programs High sensitivity, Twilight portrait, Twilight mode, Soft snap, Smile shutter, Landscape, Beach, Snow
Special effects Vivid, Black & White, Sepia
Max Shutter Speed 1/1600 sec
Min Shutter Speed 1 sec
Exposure Metering Multi-segment, Center-weighted, Spot
Exposure Modes Automatic, Program
Exposure Compensation ?2 EV range, in 1/3 EV steps
White Balance Automatic, Presets
White Balance Presets Incandescent, Fluorescent light (warm white), Cloudy, Flash, Fluorescent light (cool white), Fluorescent light (daylight), Daylight
Digital video format MPEG VX
Still Image Format JPEG
Continuous Shooting Speed 2 frames per second
Color support Color
Image Stabilizer Optical (Super Steady Shot)
Face Detection Yes
TV Tuner None
Video Capture MPEG - 640 x 480, MPEG - 320 x 240
Memory / Storage
Flash Memory 15 MB Flash - Integrated
Integrated Memory 15 MB
Floppy Drive None
Digital Storage Media None
Image Storage 3264 x 2176, 3264 x 2448, 2048 x 1536, 640 x 480, 2592 x 1944, 1920 x 1080
Flash memory 15 MB - Integrated
Supported Flash Memory Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo
Lens System
Type Zoom lens - 5.35 mm - 21.4 mm - F/2.8-5.8
Focal Length 5.35 mm - 21.4 mm
Lens Construction 5 group(s) / 6 element(s)
Lens Manufacturer Carl Zeiss
Additional Features
Self Timer Yes
Self Timer Delay 10 sec, 2 sec
Additional Features USB 2.0 compatibility, DPOF support, Face detection, PictBridge support, In-camera red-eye removal, Digital noise reduction, Built-in speaker, Direct print, Digital image rotation, Camera orientation detection, Auto power save, Histogram display, PRINT Image Matching
Camera Flash
Effective Flash Range 8 in - 13 ft
Type Built-in flash
Flash Modes Flash OFF mode, Fill-in mode, Slow synchro, Auto mode, Red-eye reduction
Red Eye Reduction Yes
Effective flash range 8 in - 13 ft
Features AF illuminator
Viewfinder
Viewfinder Type Optical - Real-image zoom
Color support Color
Display
Type LCD display - TFT active matrix - 2.5 in - Color
Mounting Built-in
Resolution 115,000 pixels
Digital Player (Recorder)
Type None

Microphone
Type Microphone - Built-in
Connections
Connector Type 1 x Composite video/audio output, 1 x USB
Expansion Slot(s) 1 x Memory Stick PRO Duo
Lens Systems
Auto Focus TTL contrast detection
Type Zoom lens
Focal length 5.35 mm - 21.4 mm
Focus adjustment Automatic
Auto Focus Points (Zones) 9
Lens Aperture F/2.8-5.8
Optical Zoom 4 x
Zoom Adjustment Motorized drive
Lens construction 5 : 6
Features Aspherical lens, Built-in lens shield
Miscellaneous
Cables Included 1 x A/V cable, USB cable, 1
Included Accessories Wrist strap
Power
Power Device Battery charger - External
System Requirements for PC Connection
Operating system Apple Mac OS 9.1, Apple Mac OS X 10.0 - 10.4, MS Windows ME, MS Windows XP, MS Windows 2000, Apple Mac OS 9.2
Battery
Supported Battery 1 x Sony NP-BG1 Li-ion rechargeable battery - 960 mAh ( Included )
Manufacturer Warranty
Service & Support 1 year warranty
Service & Support Details Limited warranty - Parts and labor - 1 year
Type 1 year warranty, - Limited warranty - Parts and labor
Full contract period 1 year
Software
Type Sony Picture Motion Browser, Drivers & Utilities

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Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W130 (silver)

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General

Main Features

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Additional Features

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Viewfinder

Display

Digital Player (Recorder)

Microphone

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