The current Cyber-shot point-and-shoot flagship, the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-TX100V packs just about every feature Sony has to offer into one slim, slick, and quite attractive exterior. The TX100V offers Sony’s latest 16.2MP “Exmor R” CMOS sensor, a Carl Zeiss 4x zoom lens, a whopping 3.5 inch touchscreen LCD with 1,229K dots of resolution, 3D still and panorama options, full 1080/60p video, 10fps continuous shooting, and all the great Sony shooting modes we’ve become accustomed to over the past few years like iSweep panorama, backlight correction (HDR), and anti-motion blur mode. Still not satisfied? Oh, well how about built-in GPS, for geotagging your photos, because the TX100V does that too.
What it doesn’t do is make any attempt to appeal to enthusiasts, there’s no RAW and no physical controls, instead this camera is unashamedly a consumer oriented camera, designed to appeal to point-and-shooters who want every feature imaginable, but that takes pictures in the easiest way possible. At a current price of $379, the TX100V is hardly value oriented, but as a premier point-and-shoot, and for a camera this feature packed, the agile and competent TX100V largely lives up to its price tag.
Specifications | |
Camera | Sony |
Street Price | |
Sensor | 16.2MP 1/2.3″ (7.77mm) “Exmor R” CMOS sensor |
AF Options | 9 points AF (Under Face Undetected) / Center Weighted AF / Spot AF/ Flexible Spot AF (touch) |
ISO Range | 125-3200 |
Continuous Shooting | 10fps for 10 frames |
LCD | 3.5 inch OLED with 1,229K dots of resolution |
Lens | 27-108mm (35mm equiv) | 4.x optical zoom | F3.5-6.3 | Macro: .39″ (1cm) |
Shooting Modes | Intelligent Auto, Superior Auto, iSweep Panorama, Movie Mode, Program Auto, Background Defocus, Scene Selection, 3D Shooting |
Scene Modes | Soft Skin, Soft Snap, Anti Motion Blur, Landscape, Backlight Correction HDR, Twilight Portrait, Twilight, Hand-held Twilight, High Sensitivity, Gourmet, Pet, Beach, Snow, Fireworks, Hi-Speed Shutter |
Video | 1,920 x 1,080 (PS) Approx 28Mbps @ 60fps progressive, 1,920 x 1,080 (FX) Approx 24Mbps @ 60fps interlace. 1,920 x 1,080 (FH) Approx 17Mbps @ 60fps interlace, 1,440 x 1,080 (HQ) Approx 9Mbps @ 60fps interlace, 1,440 x 1,080 Approx 12Mbps @ 30fps Progressive, 1,280 x 720 Approx 6Mbps @ 30fps Progressive, 640 x 480 (VGA) Approx 3Mbps @ 30fps Progressive | AVCHD 60i / 60p / MP4 |
Output | AV Output | USB 2.0 | HDMI |
Storage | SD/SDHC/SDXC/ MS Duo |
Dimensions | Dimensions (Approx.) : W x H x D: 3 7/8″ x 2 3/8″ x 23/32″ (97.0mm x 58.5mm x 17.8mm) |
Weight | Weight (Approx.) : 5.2 oz (147g) |
Look & Feel
The TX100V comes in three color options including silver, red, and the color of our review unit, black, and it is unmistakably attractive in a tech-y, consumer-oriented type of way. The design is simple, a satin monochrome finish for the front that includes a slide down lens cover, an enormous 3.5″ touchscreen that covers the rear, and colored chrome bezel holding everything together. The exterior approach of course is far more oriented to visual appearance, than hands-on practicality, in other words you’ll want to make sure to use the attached wrist strap, because there is only two slick surfaces to hold on to, and the touchscreen interface means you’ll frequently be one-handing the TX100.
Control
Outside of a playback button, shutter release, and zoom lever, the TX100V is entirely operated by a touchscreen interface. First things first, the TX100V’s display is simply incredible, offering ample contrast, real estate, and tons of resolution. Put simply, everything looks great on it. As to the interface, Sony has done a great job of making the TX100V both very simple to use and responsive to the touch. One large “button” allows you to change your shooting mode or scene mode, and another large “menu button” allows you to make changes to your camera settings. The options are kept pretty limited, but if you’re confused, a “?” button is usually handy for a quick explanation of what a particular setting does.
In playback mode, things are equally easy to navigate. The TX100V supports finger swipes to navigate through your captures, and a tap enables the ability to zoom into your image for a more detailed look. Some very light image editing options are available, and there’s the option to “paint” on your captures, but outside some cropping, we find it unlikely that these choices will be frequently used.
You won’t find live histograms to help with proper exposure, and as we said before, the TX100 offers no manual controls, but you can tinker with ISO, exposure compensation, and WB where needed. Still the point of the TX100 is “easy to use” and it more than achieves that goal, while being the best touchscreen point and shoot we’ve encountered yet.
Auto Focus
I can’t think of recent Sony camera that didn’t focus quickly and reliably, and the same holds true for the TX100V. Focus times are very fast, the only hiccup coming in very poor light, but even there the Sony at its slowest can focus faster than many other cameras do at their quickest…impressive stuff. The TX100V provides several options in the focusing department with a center AF, multi-point AF, and what good would a touchscreen be if you couldn’t touch focus…which the TX100 deftly does. Of course the fun stuff is there too, face detect, smile shutter, and a macro option that gets you as close as 1cm to your subject.
Performance
On the performance front the TX100V’s main claim to fame is its 10fps burst rate. What’s really interesting here is that the TX100V is able to clear its buffer in about 10 seconds, preparing you for another burst. That’s pretty good for a point and shoot. Start up times are quick, but the cumbersome sliding lens protector could delay you from getting a shot, so remember to leave it down if you think you’ll need a quick shot. Shot to shot times are very good, and in general, most camera operations are performed quite quickly. There’s one small exception, the jump from the shooting display to viewing your captures in playback can take a moment, but otherwise this is a snappy camera to use.
The Fun Stuff and Using TX100V
Left to its own devices, the TX100V is entirely capable of taking great photos with minimal user interference. You have a choice of two auto modes, an Intelligent Auto, and a Superior Auto mode, the latter which seems more adept at tackling lower light situations. With both modes we found ourselves happy with our results, and we suspect most users would agree. If you want a more hands on approach, a Program Auto gives you control over WB, metering, and ISO, for those rare circumstances the camera isn’t capturing the scene the way you’d hoped.
For tougher scenarios, the TX100V provides several useful scene modes. First up, Backlight Correction HDR combines several shots into one image with superior dynamic range, great for strongly backlit subjects. Next up is Hand-held Twilight. This mode takes advantage of the TX100V’s fast burst rate to fire a number of shots and combine them into one lower noise shot, making it a nice solution for shots that would normally be prone to lots of image noise from using a high ISO setting. Both options work great at achieving their respective goals. Like any good Cyber-shot these days, the TX100V also includes iSweep panorama that works exactly as advertised…sweep the camera left to right and the camera stitches everything together into one nice pano. The TX100V also includes 3D still and 3D Sweep Panorama, but keep in mind these require the use of a 3D compliant monitor for proper playback, which at this time is beyond our testing ability.
Finally the TX100V has GPS built right in, so geotagging your photos is as easy as turning your camera on. In our review time the TX100V did a great job at accurately recording our shot locations, perhaps for some, to an unnerving degree. We brought our captures into iPhoto and took advantage of its “Places” feature which allows you to sort photos by location, and the accuracy was just spot-on. Remember, if you plan on sharing your images online, and you don’t want viewers to be able to discern your location (personal photos at home for instance), make sure to turn off the GPS feature.
The only difficult thing about using the TX100V is sliding the lens cover down. It takes a surprising amount of effort to get it to slide down, so be sure to really grip the camera when doing so. Outside that, we had very few complaints using the TX100V.
Image Quality
The 16.2MP “Exmor R” CMOS sensor used in the TX100V sounds impressive, but the apparent increase in resolution is limited by the 1/2.3″ sensor size. More pixels in this case theoretically means more noise, but Sony isn’t going to let you see that noise because it aggressively smears out all the noise even starting at the TX100V’s base ISO of 125. You can’t control noise reduction (NR) with the TX100V, so you’ll have to live with it, and that means viewed at 100%, captures from the TX100V lack a lot of fine detail. Hair, skin detail, foilage, etc., all get mottled up, victims of the camera’s NR. As the ISO goes up, the NR gets worse, so by ISO 800 text becomes difficult to decipher, and it’s all but gone by ISO 3200.
Viewed at smaller sizes, or in small to medium prints, the TX100V’s output looks very good with nice color, and pleasantly sharp. As we mentioned above, the TX100V is quite competent in its auto modes, so captures tend be quite accurate and appealing, and thanks to modes like Backlight Correction HDR and Hand-held Twilight, even high contrast or low-light shots come out looking much better than expected.
So yes, for most purposes, the TX100V’s output should be plenty good enough to please the point-and-shoot photographer, but the best way to view the TX100V’s images has to be the camera’s own LCD. We can’t say enough about this display, captures (and video) simply look amazing, it’s too bad that some of that is lost once you’ve transferred the images over to your PC.
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