Sony TX5 now available for pre-order

Sony TX5 Amazon.co.uk        £299.99

I don’t know about you, but here at DigitalVersus we could hardly contain our excitement when Sony presented its Cyber-Shot TX5. This ultra-compact camera is shock-proof, waterproof to 3 m, and has a wide-angle lens, a touch-screen, and an Exmor R sensor — in other words — it looks nothing short of fantastic. We haven’t got our hands on one to test yet, but we’ve just found out that the TX5 is available to pre-order. There’s bad news too though, as its price tag places it very much at the top end of the market.

So is £300 too much for a compact camera? Given that you can pick up an Olympus µ Tough-3000 for under £200, it looks like the extra £100 (and then some) buys you the TX5’s ultra-compact design, touch-screen, extra wide-angle lens and ‘backlit’ sensor. Bargain!

Another way of looking at things is that the TX5 isn’t really that different from Sony’s next model up, the TX7. In fact, the difference in price is nominal and they’ll undoubtedly take pretty much the same pictures with their identical sensors and lenses. Ok, so the TX7 films video in Full HD whereas the TX5 films in 720p, and the TX7 has a VGA screen compared with 230,000 dots for the TX5, but the TX5 isn’t afraid of water or sand and has a slightly more compact design.

Next, if we compare the TX5 to other waterproof cameras such as the µ Tough-8010 and the FT2, for example, both of these more-robust models are waterproof to 10 m rather than 3 m and have more powerful zooms, even if they’re more bulky, less stylish, and don’t offer such a wide viewing angle. They also both feature 14-Megapixel CCD sensors, which are, apparently, not a patch on the backlit CMOS. However, the ability of a sensor to take good photos underwater in spite of the dodgy lighting conditions is surely an even more important factor to consider …

So, anyway, is it worth the money? That all depends how you look at it and what you’re looking for. I think I’ll be waiting to test one for myself before I consider parting with £300 of my hard-eared cash!

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