Front (7.5)
The front of the DSC-P100 is entirely flat when the camera is off. The lens diameter is about the size of a silver dollar and extends about an inch when it’s zoomed as far as it can go. I like the fact that a little shutter cover automatically closes over the lens when the camera is turned off. This is a great feature, especially in a camera that you can expect to shove anywhere. To the left of the lens is a tiny little microphone that records sound in movie mode. The holes are so tiny that most people will not even notice it’s there. Above the microphone is the tiny little square finder window (have you noticed the trend of everything being tiny?), and next to that is the self-timer lamp/auto focus illuminator. These features are also crammed together, but the placement doesn’t really matter on this end. The only other feature on the front is the long thin flash to the left of the finder window. I like the placement of the flash because it’s out of comfortable finger range, so there’s little chance of covering it up. My only complaint about the front of the camera is that the lens might be too close to the right edge, and it’s easy to get your finger in the way of the lens.  

Back ( 7.5 )
The back of the camera is where things can get tricky, but for people who are used to small devices like cell phones or PDAs it should be business as usual. The largest thing on the back of the camera is the 1.8-inch LCD. This takes up most of the entire left side, except for the tiny little viewfinder above it. The size of the viewfinder probably won’t bother the average point-and-shooter because most people compose their images solely with the LCD screen. I was a little annoyed; I am a bit old fashioned in that I still like to stick the camera up to my face and look through the viewfinder to compose my pictures. This viewfinder is entirely too small to use, forcing even the old fogies to pull the camera away and use the LCD.

Directly to the right of the viewfinder are three tiny little lights. In this case, the size doesn’t really matter because, when lit, they’re very bright and you can’t miss them. The top light is the self-timer/recording lamp, which glows red when a shot is being recorded. The second light is the AE/AF lock lamp that turns green when the auto focus is activated before a picture is shot. The bottom light turns orange when the flash goes off or if the camera is plugged in to charge.

The two top controls on the right side of the camera, the mode dial and the zoom buttons, are pretty easy to use. The mode dial has ribs around the edges and rotates easily from mode to mode. It’s also placed where the thumb can reach it really easily. If you simply slide your thumb over to the right, you'll find the wide angle to telephoto zoom buttons pretty slick as well.

Directly below and to the left of the mode dial is the display/LCD on/off button, which allows you to toggle back and forth between the two viewing options. Although it’s small, most display/LCD buttons are located right next to the LCD, so this one was easy to find. The four-way control button is just below the center line of the camera. Each outer button has two functions. When the menu is on, they are each used to move in the direction they are facing. When the menu is off, the up button is the flash, down is self-timer, left allows you to view the image you just took and then return to shooting mode, and right is macro mode. Sony was clever in giving these each two functions and probably saved a lot of space by doing so.

The other two buttons on the bottom of the back are the menu button and the image size/delete button. This is another double-function button that allows you to specify your image size in shooting mode, and delete images in playback mode.

Left Side (8.5)
The left side of the DSC-P100 is simple but sweet. There are no buttons, just a curved edge with a smooth piece of plastic running up and onto the top of the camera. I think the rounded edge is a nice feature that Sony put into this model. It’s a small way of making the camera more pleasant to hold.

Right Side (7.5)
The right side of the camera is entirely taken up by the battery/memory stick cover. Sony designed a pretty slick cover by making a door within a door. To access the whole cavity, you slide the door down and it will snap open. You can also open the little DC in jack cover if you just want to charge the camera. This makes it so you don’t have the whole door hanging open when the camera is plugged in.  

When you open up the door, you will see three slots. The largest one on the left is for the InfoLithium NP-FR1 battery pack (R-type). It has a little gray knob that snaps into place and holds the battery in tightly. When you want to release it, you just slide the knob over and the battery pops up. To the right is the slot for the memory stick, which pops in and out when you push it. At the bottom is a little square DC in jack for plugging the camera into the wall to charge.

Top (7.0)
The top of the camera has the same smooth plastic strip that goes along the right side, but it stops after the shutter button. The two most important buttons are located on the top: the power button and the shutter button. The shutter button could be a little closer to the right side of the camera to make it easier to use, but I like that it’s larger than the other buttons on the camera. The power button, on the other hand, is surprisingly small for being so crucial to taking pictures, but it’s nice that Sony put a little indicator light next to it to let the user know that it’s starting up.