February 29, 2008:At PMA, I fell in love with the Sony T300. I talked on air about the super-sleek styling of the camera, that looks like something James Bond would use, only cooler. 

The 3.5 inch touch screen LCD was beautiful and I loved how you could change camera functions – including the focus point – just by touching the screen.  The Sony T300 also has a bunch of extra features like Smile Detection, digital red-eye reduction and a variety of face detection modes.  It even has something I’ve never seen before - a function called, wait for it, Happy Face, that detects a frown in a picture and “turns it upside down” so it appears that the subject was smiling!

Some of these features aren’t necessarily things I’d use everyday (or, um, ever) but I’d love to play with them.

Plus, with it’s small size, highly pocketable design and huge LCD, the T300 would make a great photo viewer. What a terrific way to show your pictures to family and friends. (Of course, that’s the same justification I used for buying my iPhone, so I guess I can’t get away with it again.)

Given all that, imagine my disappointment when I read CNET’s detailed review of the Sony T300.  Reviewer Will Greenwald pretty much agreed with my initial assessment of the T300 (it’s pretty! it’s cool!) but, after using the camera, he found:

Quick performance and dozens of features are great, but in the end cameras have to be judged on the pictures they take. Unfortunately, we found the T300 seriously lacking in that respect. Even at its best, photos generally look soft, with haloing along edges. At its lowest sensitivity, ISO 80, we still see noise in flat colors, like gray. It becomes noticeable across the board at ISO 200, and by ISO 400 starts degrading detail. At ISO 3,200 photos look like they were painted with a worn-out kitchen sponge. {Scott’s note – what a great metaphor!}

Break my heart, Will! 

My search for the perfect point and shoot continues. I really like what I’ve seen of the Canon G9 (two of the attendees of our Las Vegas meet-up had and liked the camera) but it’s a little too big to serve as a a full-time point and shoot.

Scott

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