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This our third digital camera. Our other cameras are from Canon and Nikon. I was leaning toward the new Canon S60 because we love our other Canon and they both would take the same CompactFlash memory cards. This camera was going to be mine and I wanted 5MP so I could do some cropping of pictures and still keep up the quality when printing in 8 X 10 format. The Canon S60 kept being delayed, so I started looking at alternatives.

The DSCW1 seems designed to compete with the Canon S60. Both are 5 MP, both are compact, both have manual modes which allow you to be creative with your pictures. The Sony pulled ahead with its larger LCD display and its ability to use standard AA batteries. The Canon relies on a propriatory lithium-ion rechargable battery. The Sony comes with AA rechargables, but should they go dead at an inopportune moment, you can pop in any AA batteries to keep you going.

I bought the Sony and have had it for almost a month. The batteries don't seem to last quite as long as our Canon, but I picked up a couple of spare rechargables for less than $10 and just alternate them in the charger. The DSCW1 downloads using USB2 so even though each picture is larger than 2MB each, they download FAST. The picture quality has been great. Indoor low light shots have a bit more blur than I would like, but they didn't come out at all with either of our other cameras. Colors are crisp and true and prints from the pictures (on a Canon i470 printer) are excellent.

One word about the included software. Yuck. It is useful for downloading and for doing a quick view of what you took, but beyond that it is very limited.

Overall, I am very happy with my Sony DSCW1.

I was considering buying both a digital camera and camcorder since I do a lot of work in both. Howevever, my friend got a Sony DSC T1
and I found out it can take video 640x480 @ 30fps! Although I wasn't too keen on spending over $500 on that, I found out about the DSCW1.

First off, the battery life is fairly decent. I've charged up the included pair and have been using the camera frequently with little problem in battery life, but if you do run dead on the included batteries, you can always stop by a shop and pick up more AAs which is really convenient since you don't have to rely on a proprietary format.

If the 3X optical zoom isn't enough for you, you can always buy a telephoto attachment and screw it onto the lens.

Unlike the DSCT1, the W1 uses the standard memory stick size so you don't have to buy the more expensive Pro Duo sticks. At the same time the camera can use up to 1GB memory sticks.

2.5" LCD is very nice but not a neccesity.

5MP gives great pictures and when scaled down makes an even nicer print.

Don't bother with the included software. If u run windows XP the camera is recognized as a disk drive and you can access pictures immediately after plugging camera into USB.

If you do get this camera, definitely get a Memory Stick Pro 256MB. The 32MB stick lets you take maybe 12 or 13 pictures at max res and 23 pictures @ 3MP. You also can't take advantage of the 640x480 30fps video recording.

despite other reviews about slightly blurry or out of focus pictures, i haven't had that problem at all with this camera. digital noise might be a problem, but you can force a lower iso. if you know enough about photography, camera settings, and lighting, you can take beautiful photos. you just have to know how to use your camera. the macro mode is pretty good, and the multi-spot focusing is nice too. you can control almost everything about the settings, like white balance, iso, shutter speed, as well as a lot of other options. i'd recommend reading the manual and getting to know your camera, but it has a lot of modes, too, for when you just want to point and shoot. you also don't always have to shoot at 5 MP, as that would take up a lot of memory; for web-use, you can shoot at a lower size and take a lot more photos. if you plan on printing, shooting at 5 MP is best. <br /> <br /> the ginormous screen is also very very nice, and i get kind of spoiled with it now.<br /> <br /> overall, i really love this camera, and would totally recommend it to someone looking for more than just a point and shoot.