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Good Combo Unit
Strengths: Takes excellent stills, excellent video (for a combo unit), big and bright LCD, small form factor, stylish design
Weakness: Only 3x optical zoom, zooming is slow, steep learning curve, tripod needed to keep from blurring
Before i say anything, keep in mind that i am NOT a professional photographer, and that this review is from the perspective of an average consumer.
I originally looked into this camera after buying over $100 worth of memory sticks for my PSP. I thought, if these things are so expensive, i might as well have something else that uses them. You can remove the memory stick directly from the camera and view the pictures right away on your PSP. I was disappointed to find that the mpeg4 (video) format was not the same mpeg4 format supported by my PSP (although i hear that the soon-to-come version 2.0 firmware supports more formats).
Despite what some people seem to think, the DSC-M1 is very small and easily pocketable- a little smaller than most digital cameras actually. The LCD screen is big and easy to read. The menus are easy to navigate, even if you don't quite understand what all the options mean yet. The focus modes are a bit odd, but just hit the button and let the camera figure out what to do- the results are usually acceptable. The flash seems powerful enough to me. Some people have called it "weak", and i hope they realize that the DSC-M1 has a deafult flash setting of "normal" (you can still increase the power) when it comes out of the box.
Pictures are crisp and correctly colored. I took an amazing close-up shot of my thumb for testing- it looked excellent and suffered from absolutly no blurriness. The video is huge (640x480) and while it doesn't match the quality of a camcorder, i could see someone using this as a worthy substitute for one (in short bursts, a 512MB can only hold about 22 mins). You can also bring down the quality if you need to capture lots of video (a 512MB can hold about 4 hours of low-quality video).
My only problem with this camera is that some shots are hard to steady. It feels kinda stupid to whip out a tripod for this little camera, but you may have to if you want a great shot.
I paid $399 for my DSC-M1 and i am not regreating my purchase. This camera is for people that want loads of features compressed into a small package. If you want a really excellent still camera, or a really excellent camcorder, you won't find either here. But you will find a camera that takes very good pictures and very good video.
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