Impressive punch from little camera.

A lot of the other reviews have already focused and explained the myriad of features of the P200, so I will focus mainly on the quality of the output and usability. There are also a great number of in depth reviews of this camera floating around in cyberspace.

I've been taking photos as a hobby for over 6 years now and have used pretty much most formats, such as 35mm, medium format and now digital as well.
After extensively having used the Nikon D70 and D100 (two excellent DSLRs), and the Sony DSC F707, I naturally had and still have very high expectations for all other digital cameras. I was very skeptical that an ultra compact point and shoot digital could deliver the same high quality result as a DSLR. Currently, I can't afford a DSLR and probably won't be able to for a while (college), and I also wanted something small that I could just slide in my pocket and easily carry around most places.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the images the P200 put out. The images are sharp, have great color, the automatic white balance is usually fairly accurate (much better than other digital cameras I have tried), and with the right settings the images also exhibit great sharpness and detail, and if there ever is any chromatic aberration it is barely visible.

Since I'm used to the fast start up times of the D100/D70 I expected no less from the Sony P200 and like the two DSLRs it fires up instantly, which is great for capturing that moment when you need to. When pre-focussed there is also hardly any noticeable shutter lag, which is great for those sport shots. Compared to the D100 or D70 I'd say the P200 probably has a tiny bit more shutter lag, but it is still more than able to keep up, and that's a judgment made completely by feel.

There is a lot to be said about choosing the right settings. A lot of photographers often forget that it's not the camera that produces a great image but the photographer. Due to its small size and shape it is more susceptible to camera shake, so be sure to use flash or a shutter speed that is fast enough for the given situation. The camera's default program mode or full automatic mode work very well, and usually pick the right settings, but be sure to choose the corresponding scene mode or go into the manual mode to choose the correct shutter and aperture and white balance.

One of the things that I do not like about accessing a lot of the settings is that you have to go through the menu to get to them. It would be a lot quicker if they had more dedicated buttons for important features such as ISO speed or exposure compensation. The dedicated setting buttons, aside from the mode selection dial, are macro, flash, self timer, and image resolution. Although these are the only truly dedicated buttons, one nice feature is that in the setup you can have the camera display a big icon of whatever setting you just changed with these four buttons so that you are more aware of which settings your operating with and don't accidentally activate the wrong setting.

The photographers who don't need or like to rely on automatic modes, also have a great deal of freedom choosing their own settings. In the full manual mode photographers can change the aperture and shutter speed in addition to the other settings they can change in most other modes (some scene modes and full auto modes don't let you change some settings). The "other settings" include settings such as metering mode (spot/center/multi), auto-focus (single/multi/infinity and a variety of other distances), and white balance to name a few. You can even take a custom white balance measurement, which is a feature usually found only on higher end DSLR's but now is slowly making inroads to the P&S market.
One of my favorite things about this camera is its macro performance. I'm not sure how well it compares to the macro performance of a SLR or DSLR with a macro lens but for a point and shoot digital camera its fantastic.

A lot of compact point and shoot cameras lack a true optical viewfinder. The P200 has one, and even though it won't show you the entire frame, (I believe it's 85%) it's a great feature to have in case its too bright/sunny outdoors to use the lcd.

The battery life is amazing. I went over 280 photos on its first full charge, and that included a lot of fiddling, reviewing images on the lcd, and a good amount of flash photography with the auto-focus assist light on. The battery life is amazing. I recommend using a card reader, since a lot of battery power is used when transferring images.

A best buy sales person tried to tell me that I could not use my families older memory sticks and would have to use the newer pro sticks, when I was doing my preliminary camera research. Certainly not the case, the old ones will work just fine (I am not sure if they have the same write speed, I assume the older ones read and write slower) I believe it is even supplied with a non pro stick. Personally, I believe that it is not a disadvantage that it uses the Memory stick, unless you are already invested in another medium of storage. You can find great deals on this "proprietary" form of storage and companies like Lexar and Sandisk also make memorysticks. Right now I'm using a 1gb Sandisk stick and I won't get another one soon, unless I go on vacation somewhere and can't download the 287 images @ 7MP to my computer.

With the right settings, and a steady hand, most images do not need a lot of post processing, if any at all. I'm a perfectionist and proficient in Photoshop, so I try to tweak most images.