Customer Reviews:
 Nice video quality, cheesy touchscreen, awful battery December 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The video and audio quality are the best of any of the 3-4 point and shoots that can do 720p video, but you'll burn through the battery in 45 minutes of casual use.
Touchscreen is a bit cheesy to me, but i prefer a button i can feel. I expect iPhone quality touchscreen resolution and responsiveness these days, and the screen on this cam feels 2 years old.
 Perfect still/video pocket combo December 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Pros: Excellent HD video, sound, stills; Small for pocket.
Cons: (all these cons are very minor) Memory Stick; Battery life; Have to remove battery to charge it; Turns on if you use a case (or pouch) with a magnetic closure.
The Pros overwhelm the Cons. I just mentioned the only things I don't like about it, but they are very minor. Such a great combo, exactly what I was looking for.
I was about to buy the Panasonic TZ5 when I found a review on it that recommended the T500:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R115HP2FVGCFJK/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?%5Fencoding=UTF8&cdMsgNo=3&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdMsgID=Mx1I6UBUD8INJKF#Mx1I6UBUD8INJKF
Good Video - Decent Camera - Minor Flaws December 8, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was looking to replace my 5 year old digital camera (Minolta Dimage G400 - 4 mpxl) and 2 year old mini DV camcorder with one camera that can take both pics and decent video. I've been very pleased with the video that the T500 takes. I find myself capturing many of the funny thing my 2 yr old does that I would have otherwise missed because I wasn't lugging around my camcorder. In that regard, I am very happy with my purchase. There are, however, a few things I am not so pleased with:
1.) The battery life is awful.
2.) The auto focus in low light takes a significant amount of time and there were instances where I couldn't get it to focus at all and then it wouldn't even take the picture!
3.) When I try to import the video into iMovie, it doesn't import normally through the default window that pops up. I have to exit out of that and go and navigate to the memory stick and import in the clips that way.
Overall, I am pleased with my purchase and I think it is a step in the right direction from the equipment I had, however, there are a couple small nuisances that remind me it isn't the "perfect" camera.
Video is nice but still images can't compare to Canon December 4, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Hello,
I have owned the Sony T100 and T300 (10.1MP) and was never happy with the image quality of either. I purchased and then gave this T500 away, because I was not happy with the larger size and the image quality of both indoor and outdoor images. Images which seem to be, less impressive than the 8MP T100 I had. I use Sony Vaio notebooks and love most Sony products, but Sony digital cameras, just don't perform well, compared to Canon. Sony always wins, when it comes to the style and looks, of their camera's (compact cameras) but the same can't be said, when it comes to the look of Sony images.
After owning the T100 and T300 and giving them away, along with all of their extra batteries and Memory Sticks, I was sure I'd be staying away from Sony Camera's..... Then came along a new HD compact shooter that caught my attention unlike the other HD compacts (image quality of the Samsung HD compacts is very poor). The HD video was my only reason, for giving Cybershot's another try and yes the HD video is pretty nice.
However, I'm not as impressed, as many who are new to HD shooting are. I shoot a lot of HD on a Canon Vixia HF11. The canon is small for a camcorder but not able to fit in any normal human size pockets (perhaps a large jacket pocket). Having HD in your pocket is nice but it came down to one question for me: Would I rather have the best still images in my pocket or the best video in my pocket (as of now, nobody can give you both)? My answer, led me to the Canon SD990, and I am in love with this little (smaller than the T500) camera. And FINALLY Canon gives us the option, of having a nice black finish. If still images matter to you most of all; then take pictures with the T500 and SD990, both indoors and outdoors and view them on your PC screen, side by side and you'll see what I saw. Now when Canon comes out with HD like Sony, but with Canons better image quality, I'll be in line for that. BTW' another question I asked myself was how often do I ever shoot video from any compact I've ever owned? The answer was very little. And Like I mentioned, HD video is common for me so I suspect that for anyone new to HD video shooting, that after a short while, the novelty of shooting HD video from a compact shooter, will wear thin and still images will become the dominate choice in which having the best still image shooter, will be desired.
Also you will want to keep in mind that all that you've read about the low battery life is true. I couldn't't believe how quickly a fully charged battery ran down while shooting video and then also pretty quickly while just taking shots (I'm talking about less than 30min Arnold :-) ). The T300 was pretty bad with power consumption, but the T500 has only gotten MUCH worse.
In the journey of our lives, it's very nice to be able to capture moments, and in the long run, it will have worked out best, to have been able to capture those moments, in as high resolution as possible and for now, the SD990 offers that in compact form, better than anyone else (still images only of course).
Below I've cut and pasted, a pretty detailed review of the T500, from Cnet Asia. Hope I'm not breaking any Amazon/copyright rules here. I hope my review, has been of help to some of you out there. Now hurry up and get yourself, a new camera for the holidays.
Ashton
This story was printed from CNET Asia.
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Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T500
By Leonard Goh
Sep 03, 2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39001468,43978454p,00.htm
Sony's latest Cyber-shot offering, the DSC-T500, is certainly keeping up with recent compact camera trends by incorporating HD-quality (1,280 x 720-pixel) movie capture. Sweetening this deal further is the integrated stereo audio recording, a feature found only on one other shooter to date, the Samsung NV24HD. Sony is targeting the T500 at hip, young, working adults, but our guess is that HD video capture will probably appeal more to the tech-savvy crowd. However, image quality left much to be desired, especially after seeing what the Cyber-shot DSC-T77 can deliver.
Design
The exterior of the Cyber-shot DSC-T500 looks typical of Sony's T-series shooters. There's the front sliding cover, clean button layout on the top, and as with its touchscreen-enabled point-and-shoots, the rear is clutter-free. However, we found some clever modifications made to this snapper.
Compared with the T77(bottom), the T500(top) is much thicker.
(click for larger image)
To allow users to change between shooting and video capture mode easily, Sony has implemented a switch around the shutter button which makes toggling between modes really simple. Surrounding this switch is the zoom collar which is positioned where our forefinger had easy access to.
Despite all these features which appear to make one-handed operation an intuitive task, we had to use our other hand to navigate the menus and change settings because the icons are scattered on both sides of the screen. This is not so much of a problem as a matter of personal preference.
Unlike the typical T-series shooters, we would not consider the T500 slim and light. Rather, it feels relatively substantial in our hands. The heft and weight are something we noticed immediately when we picked up the shooter, but since its target audience is the more tech-savvy crowd, we guess they wouldn't mind the slight bulk.
Features
The 10.1-megapixel T500 is Sony's venture into HD-quality video capture on a point-and-shoot. So naturally, this was one of the aspects we tested heavily on. The clip we recorded under daylight was pretty detailed and we were quite impressed. But as with most conventional compact shooters, we noticed there was a fair bit of noise dotting the clip in low-light conditions.
Audio-wise, the T500 supports stereo recording. The sonic pickup was one of the best we had tested in a point-and-shoot, and we could really hear the different sounds captured on both channels. To spice it up, the speaker on the Sony also provides stereo playback. It was certainly loud enough that playing it on the bus raised a few eyebrows.
Packed into the T500 is a 5x optical zoom lens, stereo microphone and speakers.
(click for larger image)
Unlike other HD video capture-enabled snappers which record in AVI format, Sony has opted for MPEG-4 instead. A 35-second recording on the T500 chalked up about 42MB which we found to be small, compared to the 30-second, 100MB clip on Samsung's NV24HD.
While recording clips, it was nice that we were able to zoom in and out, but the shooter didn't focus on several instances when we zoomed in on our subject. But we liked how the T500 was able to snap high-resolution still images while recording video.
The rear estate is taken up mostly by a 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD. We found its response to be acceptable. We think this is because the icons are larger and makes for more accurate tapping. For more precise focusing on off-center subjects, we just had to tap on the screen and a box would appear to indicate the shooter's focus.
One feature we were amazed at is the 5x optical zoom that the T500 provides without protruding the lens. However, it lacks a wide-angle lens. If not it will be pitting against the NV24HD which has 24mm ultra-wide-angle optics. We also noted that an optical image stabilizer is used on the Sony rather than sensor-shift IS which the company has always employed in its point-and-shoots. This worked equally well, and we didn't detect any difference between the two IS systems.
The optical image stabilizer worked well for this picture, which was taken at 1/20 second.
(click for larger image)
For slightly more advanced users, adjustments to the flash output, color mode and exposure compensation can be made to achieve different looks and feels for the snaps.
An exclusion that Sony has made for this point-and-shoot would be the BIONZ image-processing engine. We found this to be rather odd because the company has always included this in its digital cameras, and we speculate that it could be due to the HD movie-recording function that requires a different chip for it to operate smoothly. With the lack of the BIONZ engine, the D-Range Optimizer feature has been removed, too. We will look at how this affects the image quality in the later part of the review.
There is 50MB of onboard memory in the T500, and you can buff it up with a Memory Stick PRO Duo flash card if you want to snap more shots or record longer video clips. A lithium-ion battery provides power to operate the point-and-shoot.
Performance
The timings that the T500 clocked in our tests were typical of how other point-and-shoots perform. Startup time was a hair less than 2 seconds, while shutter lag measured approximately 0.1 second. The time-to-first-shot was inconsistent though, because it tended to focus faster when faced with a landscape scene than with macro subjects. However, most compact point-and-shoots have the same problem.
For trigger-happy folks, the rated battery life of 180 shots may be a deal-breaker. In our tests, we managed to take about 100 shots, several HD movie clips and lots of tinkering around with the touchscreen before the battery went flat. This means the T500 may not really be suitable for holiday goers as the battery could be drained before the day is over.
Image Quality
An ISO comparison table of the various ISO sensitivities on the T500.
(click for larger image)
Earlier on, we mentioned about Sony not having the BIONZ image-processing engine and D-Range Optimizer in the T500. It appears that without these two components, the image quality did suffer slightly. We did a quick comparison with some images taken with the Cyber-shot DSC-T77, and found the quality of pictures captured at ISO 400 favored the latter. Not only were more details retained, the noise-suppression algorithm was more efficient in cleaning up the image, too. For the T500, the picture was a tad too gritty for our liking, and details in certain areas were smeared.
However, the quality of pictures taken at ISO 80 to 200 was still acceptable. Noise reduction handled well, although it was clear that at ISO 200, details were smeared. At ISO 800, the images were not very sharp and, needless to say, at ISO 1,600 and 3,200, we could barely make out words in the test chart.
Image comparison of the T77 and the T500 at similar settings.
(click for larger image)
Another noteworthy point would be that the T500 tended to produce saturated colors, which in some cases appeared a bit unnatural. Also, there were tendencies to underexpose the picture but that was easily solved by manually compensating the exposure.
We liked how we could manipulate the flash output to achieve more natural-looking skin tones in portraits. In most cases, night portraits were nicely lit and backgrounds were exposed for, too.
Conclusion
Although the T500 has a swanky HD video-recording function, it seems the lack of the BIONZ engine has an impact on the image quaity. But a redeeming factor for the shooter would be the large 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD and the onboard stereo microphone and speaker. It didn't make us an instant Spielberg, but we really like how the recordings showed more details and the stereo playback adds extra punch to the clip. Would we pay S$799 for this point-and-shoot? Well, we have to admit there are better options out there, such as the NV24HD which comes with an ultra-wide-angle lens that we really fancy. But if you like the looks and style of the T500 and don't mind taking pictures at only low ISO settings, the little premium should be worth it.
Amazing video November 29, 2008
This is THE camera if you want to capture your newborns' or kids moments. The video quality is amazing. I would have given it a 5 stars if not for the battery life. Expect to buy another battery as soon as you buy this camera.
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