Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7

Handling (5.00)

The TX7 is a mixed bag when it comes to handling the camera in use. There is nothing on the front of the camera for the fingertips to hold onto, and the smooth coating of the camera makes it slippery. While the large screen on the back is a good thing, it leaves only a small area for the thumb to land on when holding the camera in one hand. There is a small set of ridges, but the thumb slips off these quite a lot, which can lead to inadvertent touches of the screen.

Buttons & Dials (5.50)

There are just a handful of physical buttons on this camera: on the top are the power, shutter and zoom controls, plus buttons for playback mode and switching between still and movie modes. All of these buttons are rather small, and the zoom control is very poorly placed right on the corner of the camera body. This is uncomfortable to reach, and this contributes to the loose grip that you have on the camera. So, don’t forget to use the wrist strap that comes with the TX7, because you’ll need it.

All of the other controls on this camera are accessed through the touch screen interface, which is another mixed bag. We found that the screen sometimes missed touches, and took some time to respond at other times. The screen also ignores you if you touch the screen in more than one location, and that’s easy to do if your thumb ends up resting on the top right of the screen by accident.Using the included paint pen (a small piece of plastic that fits onto the wrist strap) improves the situation slightly, but the touch screen is still somewhat awkward to use.

Menus (5.50)

Because the TX7 relies on the touch screen for all of its operations, the on-screen menu is very important. We found that, once again, that using this was a mixed experience. The touch screen works well enough when you are pressing buttons on the screen (such as pressing the button to start capturing a movie), but it is kind of awkward when you have to scroll around to access a menu option; the scroll buttons are small and easy to miss.

If a user is uncomfortable with the menu, it might be worth putting the camera into easy mode, which offers simpler menus with larger text and fewer options.

Manual & Learning (5.50)

The TX7 comes with a handbook which covers the use of the camera in detail. This is generally well written and easy to use, but it does gloss over some of the details on how the features of this camera work. The Hand-held twilight mode, for instance, is described thus: ‘Although night scenes tend to blur by camera shake, this mode allows you to shoot night scenes with less noise without using a tripod.’ While that is true, it is not helpful in explaining what the mode does or how to get the best results out of it.