The Sony Cybershot DSC W210 packs a lot of punch with its 12-megapixel sensor. This camera is small enough to fit in most pockets. It is available in silver, dark grey, pink and green. The Cybershot DSC W210 has a 4x optical zoom lens.

For most purposes, you’ll likely find 12 megapixels excessive. Even if you’re looking to make large prints, you should find 6 to 8 megapixels sufficient, unless you’re looking for poster size and beyond. If you were planning on doing that, then chances are you’re looking to invest in a more expensive, better quality camera anyway.

For me, the big advantage of having so many megapixels is that Sony has included a feature called smart zoom. This allows you to increase the amount of zoom available as long as you’re prepared to sacrifice some of the megapixels you shoot. In the past, I’ve even found that shooting at lower megapixels can increase the quality of the images you take. Other advantages include taking up less space on a memory card and faster times to upload your photos to a computer. If you turn on smart zoom, you can zoom in up to 25x. This may be overkill since at that setting you can only capture images for playback on a computer or TV screen, but there are many steps in between where you can find the right balance between print size and zoom.

The Cybershot DSC W210 fits into a group of less expensive pocket cameras than higher-end models. The main reasons behind the savings tend to be the design of the cameras and the build quality. If you don’t mind a fairly plain-looking digital camera, you can save yourself a lot of money.

In terms of features, there’s not much to choose between this camera and some of the more expensive ones. The 2.7-inch LCD compares pretty well and the only obvious feature I can think of that’s missing here is mechanical image stabilization. This is where image stabilization is handled by gyroscopes on the lens or by making small changes to the position of the sensor.

Apart from this, Sony has incorporated some of the latest developments. These include face detection for sharper portraits and a smile shutter that automatically shoots a photo when the Cybershot DSC W210 detects that someone is smiling. I’ve never seen face detection make such a difference to a portrait shot and only you can decide how much value a smile shutter adds to the camera for you. Something you don’t often see on a camera this size is the ability to add conversion lenses. This can enhance the camera’s telephoto or wide-angle capabilities. To do this, you also need to purchase a lens adapter.

The camera can produce high-definition still images, but can only produce standard-definition movies.

Overall, I found the camera easy to use. Sony presents its menus sensibly. They are based on icons rather than text, but the text appears as you scroll through the icons.

When it comes to image quality, the Cybershot DSC W210 does a solid job. I can’t claim that the images it produces are anything out of the ordinary, but overall the camera does a decent all round job if you’re looking for a reasonably priced general stills camera.

Similar cameras you might want to take a look at include the Panasonic Lumix FS6, Panasonic Lumix FS7, Panasonic Lumix FS15, and the Olympus FE-5000.