Great camera, good price / performance ratio

I have the camera now since last Wednesday (3.3.10) in the color gold.
First impression after unpacking the unit: Wow, is the small and light. Surprised me, however, that the display was not provided with a protective foil. Well, battery in the charger and only once: wait ... The first batch took about 110 minutes.
In the meantime, I wanted to familiarize myself with the camera and was looking forward right to the extensive manual which was placed in a box. But bitter surprise: Besides a detailed description of the safety instructions and a really very short introduction to the camera you will find nothing in this booklet. But that in (felt) 30 languages. The actual manual is only available on the CD and is 164 pages While extensive, but quite frankly, I'm not trying hour after hour in front of the computer to spend to read an instruction manual. Nice gag: The manual writers Sony is apparently not yet known that this camera does not work with a Memory Stick Duo, but only with SD cards.

The first pictures with the camera are extremely well done. The camera is despite its light weight well in hand, only with slightly bigger fingers you really have to aim exactly at the small buttons ;-)
As an old player I've also tried the same try all light situations. Portrait in the basement only with flash, photo of our cat situation in daylight and a landscape shot with a lot of snow and blue sky, the camera did not really challenged and bring super good results. The basement recording shows a good picture without grain, the colors were strong and lifelike in all situations. Fun is at this point the smiley mode (Sorry, I have not a better name): If you want to take pictures of people, you can move the camera self-timer when all faces smile in the picture.

Surprised but really made me the video mode. Sharp images with brilliant color in HD mode are absolutely no problem, the recordings can keep up with my Canon HF100 absolutely. Only the engine sound of the zoom is very easy to hear, but do not bother me really.

For the time being the last highlight is the GPS feature, the camera not only a GPS sensor, but also a built-in compass, so that when shooting, not only the (really absolutely) exact position will be recorded, but also the viewing direction during recording. Was particularly interesting for me the question of how quickly the camera can record the satellite signal and thus determines the position. Sony here makes do a little trick, in which using the supplied software "GPS assistance data" can be downloaded, allowing faster synchronization. The loaded data are valid for 30 days and are automatically loaded when you connect the camera. With this information takes the position determination about 10-15 seconds, the counter test with deleted data then yielded 45-55 seconds.

As very annoying, I feel the need to have to use a combination connector, at the then USB, Video and Sound (no HDMI) outputs are available. I could have been better, a simple USB connection fallen since those cables now all come as standard.

Overall, a great camera, deduction there on my part because of the lack of printed manual and on the other hand because of the chunky combo connector.