tech: Sony Cybershot T77

The Sony Cybershot T77 is one of the thinnest cameras I’ve seen, at just 13mm. This makes it swanky, but actually quite hard to get a grip off. The rear is dominated by the huge touchscreen, which allows you to control all the standard camera functions. The front lens cover acts as a power switch, turning the camera off and on as it slides. Underneath the slider is the Carl Zeiss lens which sports a 4x optical zoom. Unfortunately, the zoom slider is teeny tiny, which makes it actually quite difficult to use.

“Actually quite difficult to use” is something that might describe the touchscreen interface too. In simple mode, there are 0 icons, making the touchscreen rather pointless. And in the most complex mode, there are so many options it’s almost impossible to accurately prod at the right one. I can’t help but think that a slightly better designed interface would help here.

Now the shooting options for the camera are rather limited, as this is essentially a point and click, with basically just a few program modes. There’s also a movie mode, which produces absolutely adequate films.

However the camera is fast to turn on and has a decent shot to shot cucle, with incredbly good multipoint focus even in low light. Although it comes with a vast amount of options for fiddling with your pics in the camera, But surely the desktop is the place for this sort of action, rather than on a tiny little screen like this.

Ultimately this is a cool camera that works well as a point and click. The picture quality out of the lens is plenty good enough for basic snapping, even if the large amount of jpeg compression applied makes it unsuitable for really detailed work. It’s disappointing not to have a better video mode, with no HD capture and no YouTube functionality at a time when competing cameras are delivering just that. But If thin, light and snappy is your thing then the T77 is a good option at just ¬£150 squids. 3*s.

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Trusted Reviews:
Launched in August this year, the T77 is a 10.1 megapixel, 4x zoom ultra-compact that features optical image stabilisation and a 3.0-inch touch-screen monitor. Like all of the models in Sony’s style-conscious T-series it has a sliding front panel that serves as both a lens cover and the main power switch. It shares a lot of its features and functions with the earlier Cyber-shot T70 an 8.1-megapixel, 3x zoom model, launched late last year and currently selling for around £15.

Cameralabs:
Sony’s Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is a slim 10.1 Megapixel compact with a 4x optically-stabilised lens and a 3in touch-sensitive widescreen display. Announced in August 2008, it’s the successor to the Cyber-shot T70. Sony’s kept the display, sliding front panel and minimal physical controls, but increased the resolution by two Megapixels, extended the zoom range from 3x to 4x, enhanced a number of the automatic settings, and slimmed the unit down to a mere 15mm thick.