Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7 – Feature-Laden, Slick Ultracompact
We loved:
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7 comes in a slim design; has a very fun and handy set of features; delivers quick shooting performance and considering its class the camera delivers really decent low-light photo quality for its class.
We hated:
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7 has a poor battery life and it delivers soft videos and photos.
Introduction:
For the point-and-shoot cameras, it’s hard to associate high price tag, with fast shooting performance or/and superb photo quality. As a matter of fact, whatever price you are paying for the camera, its all for the compact body of the camera loaded with immense features. For example, the all new Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7, which comes with Sony’s Exmor R high-speed backside-illuminated sensors, a high-resolution 3.5-inch touch-screen LCD, a 1080i movie capture at 60 frames per second and a 25mm-equivalent wide-angle lens and all these features in a body measuring only just 0.7 inch thick.
The DSC-TX7’s sensor pooled with Sony’s Bionz image processor lets you do a lot of things that you generally can’t do with your typical pocket camera. Two of those things are great low-light photos and speedy performance, though, the overall photo quality for the camera is less exceptional. The photos taken from the camera are best suited for taking prints of about 8×10 inches or smaller, Web use and viewing on a TV. If you are not all that critic buyer, then the design and feature of the camera makes it a worth considering camera.
Build and Design:
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7 is available in red, dark blue and silver versions. The complete metal body of the camera gives it an elegant feel and the rear end of the camera only has 3.5 inch high-resolution touch-screen display. Considering the features of the camera it’s rather slim and can easily is carried in a small handbag or pocket. Camera has physical controls like shutter and power buttons on the top of the camera; a small crux of a zoom rocker positioned on the right corner; and the playback and movie/photo mode buttons. Like most of the camera with internal lens, here also you will have to be careful with your finger placing, or else you can easily get your finger covering the flash.
The display on the rear end of the camera is Sony’s high-contrast Xtra Fine display, which is rather good. The display was easily visible even under direct sunlight, though, you will want to keep it clean and wipe out all the fingerprints. The touch screen interface of Sony makes navigation easy, all you have to do is just tap the menu icon in the upper corner and it will bring a pane of shooting options available, along with this you also will get a Toolbox icon to take you to a secondary menu for general settings.
The DSC-TX7 comes with Sony’s TransferJet technology for wireless video and photo transfer between the TransferJet-companionable devices and the camera. Using this technology you can transfer images without actually pairing the two devices, all you go to do is to bring both the devices within an inch of each other.
Positioned on the base of the camera is the compartment housing Memory stick/battery with a locking door, a tripod mount and a proprietary connector to be used with the included multioutput dock. Like most of Sony’s 2010 Cyber-shots, the TX7 also accepts both the SD/SDHC cards and Memory Stick Pro Duo cards for memory. Though, the camera only has a single slot for both the card types, situated just next to its battery compartment.
One another important thing here is that you can’t charge the battery inside the camera. We find it a shame, especially when even the battery life of the camera is really short. The company sells an AC adapter separately for charging the camera, but still the battery doesn’t charges in camera. Probably it is to charge the camera when using AV, HDMI and USB ports.
Specifications:
Manufacturer: Sony
Part Number: DSC-TX7/R
Price: $342.10 – $399.99
Product Type: Compact Digital camera
Weight: 4.7 oz
Dimensions (W x D x H) in inches: 3.9 x 0.7 x 2.4 inches
LCD size: 3.5 inch LCD
Resolution: 10.2 megapixels
Optical Sensor Type: Exmor R CMOS
Operating System Support: Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP, Apple Mac OS X 10.3 – 10.6 and Microsoft Windows Vista
Shooting Modes: Frame movie mode
Supported Flash Memory: Memory Stick Duo, SD Memory Card and Memory Stick PRO Duo
White Balance Presets: Cloudy, Flash, Underwater, Daylight, Fluorescent light (daylight), Incandescent, Fluorescent light (warm white) and Fluorescent light (cool white)
Exposure Modes: Program & Automatic
Peripheral Devices: USB port & CD-ROM drive
Software: Drivers & Utilities &, Sony Picture Motion Browser
Cables Included: USB cable & A/V cable
Connector Type: USB, Composite audio/video output, HDMI output and Component video output
Additional Features: Auto HDR mode , Direct print , Audio recording , Face detection , Time/Date stamp , Auto power save , Cropping an image , Built-in speaker , TransferJet support , PictBridge support , Progressive scanning , PRINT Image Matching , In-camera red-eye fix , Touch-screen control , Digital noise reduction , USB 2.0 compatibility , Sweep Panorama technology , Dynamic Range Optimizer , Smile Detection technology , Blink Detection technology , Automatic display brightness adjustment and Intelligent Scene Recognition (iSCN)
Shooting Programs: Snow , Pet , Gourmet , Beach , Landscape , Fireworks , Back light , Soft snap , Portrait mode , Underwater , Twilight mode , Reducing blur , High sensitivity , Hi-speed shutter , Twilight portrait , Handheld twilight , Twilight using a tripod and Backlight portrait
Features: AF illuminator
Supported Battery: Li-ion rechargeable battery
Performance:
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7’s shooting performance is really superb. The shutter lag in decent bright condition for the camera is of low 0.4 second, while the same in decent lightening conditions goes up to 0.6 second. Without flash the shot-to-shot timing for the camera is of 1.6 seconds and bumps to 2.2 seconds with flash. The camera can capture 10 frames per second at full resolution in its burst mode. Even the time taken to capture its first shot from a complete off stage is pretty less and the camera captures it in 1.6 seconds.
The quality delivered by the camera is just as expected of a point-and-shoot camera. The quality is really great up to ISO 200, but at very high sensitivities the noise reduction softens the fine details, which becomes pretty apparent when the movies are viewed at 100 percent or when it heavily cropped. So like most of the point-and-shoots it better not to shoot at very high ISOs.
Expert Comments:
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7 is a feature-laden, fast-shooting, slick ultracompact camera, but the price of the camera doesn’t ensure quality.
