jan's diary

Three years ago we bought a Sony DSC-W100. Probably thanks to it being banged against objects when falling out of my pocket it needed an eighty dollar repair a year ago. Now the same problem has resurfaced. When I turn it on I am asked to turn it off and then on again. A suggested remedy is to drop it on a carpet from a height of three meters. I haven’t tried it yet.

Instead we have purchased a new camera, a Casio Exlim EX-S12. “The EX-S12 has a stylish body measuring just .6″ thin (.5″ at the thinnest part). It boasts an effective 12.1 megapixel resolution with up to 3X optical zoom and 4X Digital zoom and a super clear 2.7″ LCD monitor.”

It is half as thick as the Sony, allows zooming when shooting videos, has 12 instead of 8 megapixels, and can take HD videos.

Last time my Sony camera gave the error message in the title I got it repaired for USD 80. Today, five months after the repair, the message crept up again. I searched the Internet and found some strange advice here and here.

Dropping the camera on a carpeted floor was the most successful treatment suggested! I believed for a while that it was a practical joke page. That is, till I actually dropped and hit the camera till it worked!

Conclusions: I should be nicer to my camera (it suffers some hits when it is in my pocket), mechanical problems may have mechanical solutions, don’t buy Sony again. By the way, yesterday I saw someone with a similar camera that could zoom the videos. Mine can’t.