The T700 offers an "intelligent scene" option, which takes two shots at once; the first uses your own settings, and the extra shot uses settings that the camera determines may be superior to your choices. Cool as the feature sounds, I thought the results were spotty, particularly in low light.

In general the camera's other modes--macro, metering, nighttime, beach/snow, smile detection (which snaps a shot when a selected subject in the frame smiles), and even blink detection (which warns you when someone in the shot has their eyes closed)--worked well. Its video mode, while not in HD, allows for zooming. That was enough for my usual habits, and certainly good enough for YouTube.

Sony includes Picture Motion Browser desktop software, which lets you export images to your PC, resize them at VGA resolution, and reimport them to the camera. Why would you want to do that? Because it lets you include up to 40,000 snapshots (in the T700's internal memory) in the T700's great-looking slide shows. The app also allows easy uploads to and YouTube.

The $400 price tag may make potential buyers shy away from the T700, but this great-looking camera offers enough features--most of which are flat-out fun--to merit serious consideration.