Techno Uptodate: Review: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T90 ($299.99 direct)

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T90 ($299.99 direct) continues the trend of widescreen displays elbowing traditional 4:3s aside. After all, the wider 16:9 aspect ratio has become common with laptop screens, monitors, and (of course) HDTVs—shouldn't we be taking pictures in 16:9, too? Luckily, the T90 has more to offer than just widescreen-ready images. Though we wish its battery life and some aspects of its image quality were better, by and large it's still an impressive camera at a compelling price.

The overall build of the T90 is identical to its predecessor, the Cyber-shot DSC-T77). It's a slim camera, measuring 2.38 by 3.75 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighing 5.3 ounces. Most of its features are controlled via its 3-inch touch-screen LCD, but buttons that toggle zoom, power, shooting and playback, and shutter release are physical buttons on the top of the camera. They're all comfortable to use and make shooting a breeze (unlike the Nikon S60, which has the zoom control on the touch screen). The front of the camera has a shield that covers the lens; pull it down to turn power up and back down over the lens to shut down. The lens has 4X optical zoom through a focal length of 6.18–24.7mm (the 35mm equivalent: 35-140mm), with corresponding maximum f-stops at f/3.5 and f/10. View VideoThe LCD on the T90 is much better than the 4:3 one on the less-expensive Cyber-shot w230, which showed a lot of motion blur. Even so, the 16:9 screen on Canon's PowerShot SD960 IS has much richer contrast. For another $50, you can step up to the Sony Cyber-shot T900, which offers a 3.5-inch touch screen with a whopping 921,600 pixels for extremely sharp picture viewing. (The T90's display uses 230,400 pixels.)

The user interface on the T90 is easy to navigate, and the information displayed onscreen never feels cluttered. When you're shooting, most of the options are labeled with icons, but when you click on one, you get a short description of what it does—a good way to learn how to operate the camera.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T90For the most part, the T90 is lightning fast. It can power on, focus, and snap a shot in an average of only 2.6 seconds, and it averaged just 1.89 seconds between shots—you can't get any better than that unless you move up to a D-SLR or buy the Casio Exilim EX-FC100, which can shoot 30 6-megapixel shots in one second. The Shooting-Digital.com shutter lag test revealed that the T90 isn't particularly special in this area: It averaged 0.63 second of lag. The Canon SD960 IS averaged almost 0.2 second faster, 0.45 second.

In the photography lab I use the Imatest suite to measure objective image-quality factors. Overall, the T90's images are on par with cameras like the Canon PowerShot SD780 IS and Nikon Coolpix S610c, but not in the same league as the Fujifilm Finepix F200EXR and Canon PowerShot SD990 IS which both deliver extraordinary image quality for point-and-shoots. The T90's noise levels are acceptable up to and including ISO 400, which is good for shooting in well-lit conditions or with the flash.

Imatest results showed the T90 has superb sharpness. A 12.1-megapixel sensor should capture at least 1,800 lines in the center of the image (typically the sharpest area); the T90 captured an average of 2,274 lines, which is excellent. This number shouldn't drop by more than 30 percent toward the edges, and with the T90 it didn't: It captured an average of 1,856 lines—also excellent.

The T90 is held back a bit by a small amount of blooming: In very brightly lit conditions, objects hit with bright light emit what looks like a glow or haze. Blooming softens the image, but the intensity is minor, unlike with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX48, which has an extreme case of blooming that completely softens the overall image. The Finepix F200EXR and Canon SD990 IS don't have this issue at all.

A little distortion was visible at both the lens' widest-angle and telephoto positions. At the wider angle, barrel distortion was evident but not horrible; moderate amounts of chromatic aberration (color fringing) were also present. At the telelphoto position, pincushion distortion was evident but not too heavy, and there were insignificant amounts of chromatic aberration here as well.

The T90 is loaded with shooting features, including Face Detection, Smile Shutter, automatic scene selection, and red-eye reduction. In playback mode, you can edit photos with red-eye removal, blur and dim, crop, resize, sharpen, add monochrome around a point, paint, and stamp.

High-definition video recorded by the T90 looks terrific, but at times is also afflicted with blooming in bright environments. Video is captured as MP4 files at 1280-by-720 pixels, at 30 progressive frames per second (720p30). The T90 allows for optical zooming while recording video, which is also nice. Audio captured in the video sounds good when you play it back on a computer, but the playback speaker on the camera itself is extremely quiet.

Connectivity on the T90 is a serious problem. There's only one output for everything: a "multi-use connector." The camera comes with a special "multi-connector-cable" that plugs into this output and turns it into USB and composite video for your TV. (You can purchase a component HD cable, as well.) If you lose or forget this "multi-connector-cable," you're in "multi-trouble."

While I don't conduct an official battery rundown test, it's safe to say that most point-and-shoots can last an entire week of testing on a single charge. This camera, however, could not. Every Sony touch-screen camera I've ever tested had dismal battery life, and the T90 was no different; it required multiple charges during my week of testing.

All told, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T90 is a well-rounded choice. It's a good performer in terms of image quality, speed, ease of use, and build—and its 16:9 LCD provides well-above-par experience in both shooting and playback modes.