Okay, so occasionally you have to fiddle with the flash or the closeups.
That is a small price to pay considering that A: you don't have to go the store to get your pictures developed (you're saving about $8 per roll right there, let alone FILM costs!).
B: NO HOOKUPS! How groovy is that!

You pop your floppy in --and floppies are cheap-- (do make sure it's formatted right, you can do that from the camera) take your pictures and go.
You can zoom all over the place, adjust for taking pictures indoors and outdoors, view all your pictures in a gallery, and so much more...
I just discovered the multiple delete option, while in the gallery, you can select different pictures and delete however many you want at once.

Color's good. Resolution is good. Lens protector has its own tether, and a shoulder strap has come in more handy than I can say. So, it's big and clunky, and you should have a backup battery. Doesn't take too terribly long to charge anyway!
Has definitely paid for itself. :-)

The MVC-FD88 is the best camera I've ever used. We've now left behind our old 35mm camera in favor of using this exclusively. The camera takes excellent, very high quality pictures, indistinguishable from a good quality 35mm. Resolution is excellent, pictures taken both in low light and bright light show good color results. Used with Microsoft's Picture It software, this is a top line camera. On our recent trip, we took over 300 pictures using this camera. I've never gotten such a high percentage of shots that were excellent before.

Some important points: Use of the floppies for storage is perfect. We took twice as many as we expected to use on an overseas trip recently and began to run out. No problem, the nearest computer store had plenty at reasonable prices. The original battery life isn't really sufficient for the heavy user, purchase of the newer longer life battery is a big boost. A UV filter is also a boost just like with a standard 35mm, particularly on very bright days. The LCD is sometimes hard to see in very bright light, a viewfinder for those occasions would help. (However, I find I get better composition with the LCD in general since I can see greater detail.) Storage time on the camera can be somewhat slow when using poor quality floppies. It's worth investing in slightly more expensive, higher quality floppies to ensure the 2 sec recording time.

Overall, a definite 5 star camera.

I had been in the market for a digital camera and had been reviewing various Web sites to read up on the features of the many brands available. After visiting Amazon.com, I decided to buy this camera because of the many favorable reviews it received here (THANK YOU! ). I am SO happy with this purchase! I have had it for a week and have been able to take awesome pictures and even video. The features on this camera are abundant and the resolution is great. I have used many digital cameras in the $300-$400 range and they just don't cut it. There is so much to love about this camera including ease of use (I haven't even had to read the user's manual yet, which says a lot!), ease of transferring photos to your computer (the AWESOME 3.5" floppies) and the excellent resolution. This camera isn't the top of the line, but if you need a camera for personal use, you will not be disappointed. I am very happy with this purchase and strongly recommend this camera! (By the way, the only two "cons" I had read here about owning this camera haven't happened to me: I have NO red-eye problems with my photos and if you record the video on the "fine" setting, it's actually quite an amazingly clear picture.) If you haven't made up your mind yet, seriously consider this camera!

The last roll of film I developed spanned four YEARS! Why? Because I hate wasting $$$ to develop twenty four photos when I'm lucky to really like one or two. PROBLEM SOLVED with the Mavica.

I tried to get a good shot of a two-year-old. Got the back of her head twice - and deleted those - before getting the effect I wanted. Showed friends immediately on TV, then e-mailed to her parents so they can print or just save on disk. It's great fun and now I take my camera everywhere. No more lost memories. No more bulky photo albums.

Color and clarity is wonderful; floppy disk storage is easy, familiar, and inexpensive. An idea: leave space on the floppy disk for a Word file describing each photo (who, what, where, when, etc.) Spend $$$ on camera quality, not storage capacity.

Instruction booklet stinks but camera is so easy to use you don't need instructions. Truly. Still need to figure out a few things about digital imaging in general... Biggest question is this: Which setting is best for photo-quality 4x6 prints? I don't want to use the highest setting (and save fewer photos per disk) if I don't have to for this size print. I'm sure experience will answer this question and, unlike regular cameras, nothing is lost while experimenting.

I will never regret buying this camera!

I started looking at digital cameras when I got interested in posting pictures on the web or sending them via e-mail to family members in other states. There are both cheaper cameras and cameras with greater resolution avaiable, but for flexibility, ease of use, and convenience nothing tops the Sony Mavica series. I bought the MVC-D88 because it had a range of resolutions (from 640 x 480 to 1,280 x 960), supported a number of file formats including MPEG short film files, had a number of special effects options and a good zoom feature (8x optical and 16x digital zoom). I have never reqretted the buy. The camera feels good to hold, the LCD menu options are clear and intuitive, it is easy to focus and creates excellent images even under very low light conditions. The great thing, of course, is what made me want one in the first place - the Sony Mavica is the only digital camera on the market that writes directly to a floppy disk. The flexibility that gives one to be independent of a particualr computer with special cables and software for uploading images is alone worth the extra that one pays.

There are a couple of limitations that should be pointed out. The built in flash has no red eye reduction, so a disproportionate number of flash portraits have some red eye reflection that must be corrected with software editing. Also, there is no optical viewfinder and one must frame the picture using the 2.5 inch LCD color monitor on the back of the camera. This is easy to use indoors, but in any direct sunlight it becomes very difficult to see, so I have found myself reshooting a lot of outdoor images to get them framed correctly.

Still, those are small disadvantages compared to everything that Sony has done right with this camera. I highly recommend the Mavica to anyone interested in digital photography primarily for email or internet purposes. A great product.

I looked at all of the cameras on the market before buying the FD-88. I've owned it for about 6 months and couldn't be happier. It takes individual photos and will record about 2 minutes of MPEG video -- all stored on floppies. You can take pics and simply remove the disk and insert another. Pictures can easily be passed to a friend. It is much easier then downloading to a PC.

Picture quality is excellent and the 16x zoom gives EXTREME CLOSE-UPS when desired. There is a reason SONY owned >70% of the digital camera market.

If you're looking for the best, look no further...this is your camera!

yep, it's big and heavy. but this is the camera i keep coming back to after having it 6 years...

i have owned an HP and a Casio. the HP stunk and the Casio is a tiny delight. but the Sony was my first.

it simply works. well. simply. competently. not every computer around has card slots and having a camera that uses floppy disks has been helpful.

it is especially good for pictures for eBay and email. good quality photos with a small file size.

so, if you see a good looking, working specimen go ahead and buy it and give digital photography a try!