Sony’s miniature marvel - the DSC-U10

22nd August - 2002
By Ian Burley

Sony’s lifestyle cam aims to be a young person’s status symbol

It’s already on sale in Japan and the USA ($199) and we’ll get to see it at Photokina next month; it’s Sony’s smallest Cyber-shot digital camera, the U10. Sony sees the U10 aping the popularity of designer mobile phones with mainly young adults through both its chic looks and size, convenience and pocketability (take it everywhere you go) and novelty.

In Japan you can get a U10 in different colours too.

DP-Now was able to examine a U10 earlier this week. It’s remarkably small just 87mm wide (under 3 1/2 inches) and from the front it’s about the same size as a compact mobile phone. The side profile is thicker, however, at 30.1mm - just over an inch. It weighs just 87g.

1.3 megapixels

In the photo above the protective sliding cover is open to reveal the tiny fixed non-zooming lens, though there is a digital zoom setting and the lens does use autofocus. A 1.3 megapixel CCD sensor produces the pictures at 1280x960 resolution and we were shown some 6x4 prints taken with a U10 which looked pretty good. There is also an MPEG movie mode facility.

There is no optical viewfinder at all, so you depend on the little one inch LCD screen on the back of the unit. This is fine for indoors and Sony says its performance even in bright light is remarkably good.

This is a camera that could have benefited from Sony’s new compact Memory Stick Duo card (click here). But instead a standard sized memory stick slot is provided.

The Cyber-shot DSC-U10 takes two AAA batteries, either alkaline or NiMH rechargeables. Two Sony Stamina AAA NiMH batteries are supplied with the U10.

Phil Askey over at mega digital camera review site, Digital Photography Review, actually has a U10 to evaluate. To see what he thinks about the U10, click here.

And what do you think? Is it cool enough to desire? tell us - click here.

Sony UK

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