I always like to wait until I have used a product before I say anything good or bad about it. So far I have been pleased with the camera. For the price of the camera the pictures I have taken and the movies I have made are very good. The only bad thing is pictures taken using the flash don't turn out very good. But you can take pictures in low light that do turn out good. For a look at photos and videos taken with the Sony DSCW170 on line use this link. Copy and paste.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g147243-d651208-r21684135-Verandah_Resort_Spa-St_John_s_Antigua_Antigua_and_Barbuda.html

Click on the Traveler Videos to see some videos taken with the camera. The videos will look a little choppy due to the web site's size limitation. You can also see some raw photos taken with the Sony. Click on Traveler Photos, look for the ones labeled rangerbob1957. The battery time is good even when making videos but is sure is nice to have a back up.

Love this camera. Its easy to use with great features. The smile button snaps the picture when it detects a smile...wow it actually works. This should make those Christmas pictures perfect. I also love the easy button...great pics no thought to it!! Finally you experts out there there are enough settings available to you to customize your shots.

One thing I forgot to mention the wide angle feature to fit the whole scene in should come in handy on my upcoming trip.

Nothing to not like about this camera.

I bought this camera after already having a canon from about the same class. My expectations weren't too high, but I knew I wanted something good. I was dead wrong in thinking that it was a typical point and shoot camera.

1st off, the lens is absolutely amazing. It has a very high quality zoom.

2nd, It is very elegant and cosmetically appealing, and definitely not too thin.

3rd, The features are amazing!!! From the clever smile mode, to face and scenery detection features, this camera has just about everything! It even has an EASY shooting mode for the camera unsavvy people.

It is simple and easy to use all the while being an incredibly ideal, proffesional camera for amateur and hobby photographers.

There are NO annoying little things that other cameras have and I love this camera a lot.

I was impressed how fast my camera had been delivered. I ordered it in the morning - between 4 and 5 am on Wednesday, and on Friday I had it delivered! Amazing! Camera works great. Well, Sony is trying to keep its brands up to the mark: no matter what products are. Excellent brand, nothing else to add.

I purchased this item for my boss. He's technically challenged but this camera was so easy to use that he picked it up and started using it right away. I absolutely recommend this camera.

As an owner of several digital cameras over the past 10 year, here is my opinion for what it's worth. I put a lot of thought and research into choosing this camera and while I haven't owned it long, I plan to update this as I learn.

The camera really rocks in many categories.

Pros

The screen is beautiful, not bad even outdoors.

I love the red color of the camera!

The scene selection should prove helpful, haven't used it yet

Zeiss lenses do seem to be very high quality

The flash is one of the features that closed the deal for me. I tried all of the cameras at best buy side by side. When taking a photo inside with a flash, many cameras, including my old canon made everyone look white and washed out while the background was very dark or even blank. Not on this baby. The color, indoors and out, foreground and background really seems well lit and very even in tone.

Cons

Lose the smile thing, both for picture taking and editing. The one in editing is just creepy looking.

Want really creepy photos? Make the person have a smile intensity of 5, and then do it again and again and again..... It looks like a worm stretched across their face. Also doesn't detect faces if they have mustaches.

This seems designed for a lot of portraits, but I like landscapes and sports events.

Where is the panoramic stitch type help? One of the cameras out on the market right now has it where they show a little bit of a ghost image of the last shot to help line up the panoramic shot. Even my cameras that are 5-10 years old had something for panoramic.

Can't they add the little plastic thingy that tightens around your wrist so you don't loose this $300 gem?

Why no sport mode?

I want pics of kids at their sporting events and such, still trying to figure out how to take good photos inside with poor lighting and speedy kids at volleyball. They are ending up blurry. I am sure there is a setting that will work, just not sure what it is yet.

I do like how some of the other models have lenses that don't stick out and move, so particles don't get caught in them.

Why does the underwater case cost nearly as much as the camera?

Looking for a good blog to learn tricks about my new toy...

Great photos, easy to use, light weight. I bought the leather Sony case with it and can easily carry it on my belt. I carry it at work to photo dry erase white board sketches and notes... comes in handy. Zoom works well. Great detail.

I purchased this from BestBuy just because I didn't want to wait for shipping and I needed a camera this weekend. Anyway, after going through a few Kodak digital cameras, first a 5 MP and then a 8mp I upgraded to this wonderful Sony 10mp that is just fantastic. I had it out of the box and taking pictures within 5 minutes. I posted a fantastic picture of a butterfly under product images. That was taken impulsively in easy mode.

I love the smart smile technology, what a spectacular idea that was. To those of you who are unfamiliar with that technology as I was smile shutter will wait for the subject being photographed to smile. It displays a smile meter and when the perfect smile is made it knows just when to take the perfect shot - it's awesome if you learn to use it correctly.

I also appreciate the fact it has built in slide show feature with music. The single USB & A/V cord makes it easy to connect to a computer or a TV. At first I did not know if I liked the fact that I could not choose the perfect scene mode but I will tell you that this is one smart camera and consistently and flawlessly will choose the best conditions to shoot the picture.

This also comes with a rechargeable battery with charging station that is a sure winner. The only thing I can think of that I wish this had was a Panoramic mode that "stitched" together multiple photos like my kodak did on board the camera. But thats what photo editing software is for I guess

I also enjoy messing around with black and white photographs. If you place this in personalized mode and select B&W color mode it will take B&W photos that will blow you away.

Bottom line: If you are considering a camera that is above a entry level camera but not quite a SLR but is capable of producing "WOW" photographs, go to an electronic store and give this one a try, you probably will not be disappointed.

ADDED AFTER 3 MONTS OF OWNING:

Still am happy with this camera. One drawback is although it has a lot of buttons and features which I enjoy, there are stff limits as far as shooting your pictures in a manual mode. Also, I am having trouble in almost any mode of the camera noticing different shades of red. E.g. if shooting a red flower with all red leafs but at different depths, the camera just sees a blob of red. Now having it, I sill like it lots, might drop to 3.5 to 4 out of five on stars. Still worth looking at but I may have bought a SLR camera though more expensive, but I do like this size. I am torn on my review of this. In ways I enjoyed my 8mp Kodak better. Also, no panoramic mode on the sony.

It was a great product and well worth the money was shipped fast and everything that was described was included

The Sony model DSCW170 camera is entirely satisfactory, considering its size and cost. It produces very beautiful photos of architectural and landscape subjects; it is harder to use for good photos of people because of the inherent delay of a fraction of a second between composing the picture and actually capturing it. One comes away with more respect for the daguerrotype photographers, whose models had to be still for minutes, not just a fraction of a second. It is annoying that it is not shipped with at least a one GB memory chip; the chip is a separate purchase, from a separate supplier. Unless you are using the full 10 megapixel image quality, the four GB memory chip I purchased is probably overkill - it permits you to store more than 1000 photos at 5 megapixel quality.