If you are just an amateur photographer that is either finally switching from analog to digital or just want a decent camera to take on family vacations or school projects, this is a great camera. It is small, lightweight, and does just about anything you could possibly need it to do. It won't take pictures of hummingbirds feeding across a forest bed, but it will take a decent photo of the grand canyon. The quality of the 3x optical zoom is really good, but the picture is sacrificed slightly as you try to artifically enhance it with the digital zoom. The battery life is good enough to take on extended trips from your hotel or on a hike without having to carry around a charger or spare batteries. If you plan on taking lots of high quality large photos, you will need to get a larger memory stick (64 MB will work, 128 MB even better), but the memory stick it comes with will be enough to photograph your child's birthday party as long as you download the photos onto your computer afterwards. At 3.2 MegaPixels, this camera will pick up individual hairs on a persons head, but it won't be able to photograph a flea in the hair with any great detail. All around, while Sony's camera lenses may not compare with Canon or Olympus, Sony makes up for it with their superior knowledge of how to make a great consumer digital device and turn it into a decent digital camera. It is a great value for the price.

This camera is really easy to use and you can take great pictures with it. I bought it two years ago and it still seems to be a good value for the price I paid. One of the features that I liked is the fact that it can record videos. I was thinking about buying a camcorder, but decided to buy this one instead. The quality of the video is Ok, not great. Currently, cameras with higher resolution can record better videos.
Overall, I recommend this model to anyone who wants to buy a digital camera.

I have had this camera for two years...The battery life is EXTREMELY POOR....have two batteries and for a day out, it is not enough...many times the memory stick causes errors....lighting is tricky, sometimes pictures come out good, most time bad....lighting is always a problem....outdoors too much, indoors not enough...this is my second digital camera and have decided to go back to my old film based Minolta which had never dissapointed me....

I've had this camera for over 1 year now and I am nothing but satisfied. When I decided that I wanted a digital camera it was important for me to get one that was small enough not to impede on my active lifestyle yet did not compromise on technical ability. Sony's DSC P7 is the perfect mix. I travel a lot internationally and so I just put it in my pants pocket and keep the charger in my luggage. You can snap about 300-400 pictures before the battery dies. The menu functions are very user friendly and allow you to highly customize the settings.

There is also no compromise on other aspects. The movie quality is not perfect but really good and the sound is excellent. Another thing that is annoying about most digital cameras is how long it takes for the picture to snap. With this one, it takes the picture as soon as you push the button. This is also true with the movies. I know on some digital cameras when you are done recording a movie you have to wait a while for it to "save" to the flash memory. Not with this one; Sony seems to have gotten the right idea in that, flash memory should work in a flash. The only problem I have with it is that sometimes in extremely low-light conditions when the flash is imperative, you have to wait about 6 seconds for the flash to build up. But just to reiterate, this doesn't happen in the light. The other cool thing is the memory stick. You can get 512MB sticks and you can even buy generic ones (from the same company that makes them for Sony) at half the price Sony charges. The picture quality is outstanding. The user can select a variety of qualities along with visual effects such as B&W, etc...

To recap: It responds quickly to user commands, picture quality is excellent, it's small & light, it's not that expensive, and the movies have excellent quality sound with very good video.

Bottom Line: I'm a tough customer but the Sony DSC7 gets 5-stars because it deserves it.

My old Kodak digital camera finally stopped working after being dropped too many times so I replaced it with this Sony after reading many reviews of comparable products.
This camera is great to use, the menu options are easy to change and the USB interface makes downloading pictures very fast.
However, the picture quality is most disappointing compared to my old Kodak. Color and contrast never look quite right, and at lower resolutions, the pictures look grainy - unlike the Kodak at the same resolution.
Selecting "Autobalance" in Microsoft Photo Editor nearly always makes a difference - both for indoor and outdoor pictures.
I will now be looking for a new Kodak model.

i've owned this model for three years and it JUST gave out on me. The camera takes great photos, but sometimes stalls when you want to take that instant photo, so a lot of the "kodak moments" end up being staged since you have to wait around for shutter and all the redeye flashing to stop.

the camera plugs into a computer nicely with the USB cable, making transferring photos a snap.

The power source for the camera is a specific battery which doesn't last long, which was a problem on weeklong trips away from the charger.

The shutter mechanism failed about one year into usage.

But the thing's a workhorse, as i've taken about 1000 pics with it over the years. good starter camera

I have had this camera for almost 4 years and it has been amazing up until recently. When I first bought it, I had researched many different styles and found this to be the best. It took great pictures under most conditions, however I have always had problems taking rapid shots and especially with taking pictures in low light. Overall I would have recommended this camera to anyone. 1000 pictures later, this camera has failed me. The pictures now come out blurry, if they take at all, and the batteries are giving out on me. I am very dissapointed with it and while at one point, it was the smallest and most popular model, now I think any consumer would be better off with a different model. Think twice before purchasing this camera, I think there are better options out there.

I've had this camera for four years and taken over 4,000 pics with it. Until now all I could have said about this camera was how fantastic it's been, well it's all past tense now that it's dying. I went to an afternoon wedding recently and all though there was plenty of natural light ALL of the pictures turned out too dark and blurry, also the lag between shots has increased.

In a fit of anger last year I threw it against a stone wall and it was only in a flimsy canvas bag, not a scratch or blip, the camera is tough as nails. It has been in my handbag from the day I bought it and has been through everything with me, I will be sad to say good-bye and nervous that the next one is as good. I'm now buying the Sony DSCT30.

The 128 memory card on the highest resolution will hold 100 pictures and the rechargable battery is the only way to go, it lasts 120 minutes of on time or a month in the off position. No need to keep buying/carrying batteries.

The movie mode is a bit grainy but it's handy for quick vid snippets of a loved one's voice or smile.

If you're looking for a basic starter camera for not much money go for it, but don't pay more than 100 pounds, try ebay.

I've had this camera for a bit over 4 years. It was with me in Hawaii, Peru, Germany, and all over California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah. It took awesome pictures. When I printed out pics, people always asked me "and that little camera took these pics?". Yes!
The short-comings: there was always a delay in certain conditions, which I lost many good pics to. Sometimes the shutter only opened halfways, with me noticing only later when I downloaded the pics - pics lost forever!
Battery life was very very poor, drove me nuts.
So now it finally died. Bought new battery, nothing, will return battery.
I loved this little camera, despite its short-comings, it will be hard to replace with another compact.