I have been using a first generation Canon digital camera and a first generation Sony Mavica for some time now (over 3 years) so that I have some basis for comparison. I am also an old time analog photographer who has used his share of Nikons.

The Sony DSC-P1 fits the bill as an ideal camera in a lot of ways:

1. Picture quality is excellent. The megapixel resolution of this baby is about all one needs unless you are a REAL pro.

2. This baby is small and will fit in your pants pocket so that you don't look like the "typical tourist photographer" wherever you go.

3. The weight of the camera is just about right so that it feels solid and well-consturcted, but it doesn't hold you back.

4. The combo of LED and optical viewfinder serves you well in either daylight or relative darkness.

5. Memory sticks are available up to 128 mb at about $100 bucks (11/2001). This enables you to take 30-50 full res shots at a time.

6. The toy-like MPEG movies that the camera takes are cool.

7. The controls are relatively intuitive.

8. The automatic retracting lens and lens cover are great. No need to worry about a lens cap getting lost.

9. The Info Lithium batteries are long-lasting...about 2 hours per charge.

The few downsides of this gem are:

1. Proprietary memory and batteries are more expensive.

2. Proprietary card readers and battery chargers are expensive (but well-worth the price for convenience and speed of downloading images.) One should always keep a battery on the charger and one needs to carry the charger with them while traveling.

3. The shutter release is slightly hard to push and adds some shake to some pictures as a result. Maybe I just need to wear mine in some more!

4. The flash is under-powered.

Summary: An excellent compact megapixel digital camera from Sony with very few drawbacks other than $$$.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 725