Others say...

"Good beyond belief"
Full of fun features that are easy to use and fun to experiment with. For example, the automatic slide shows on a TV with music is a real eye popper. How can all of this fit in a camera so small?

Lens quality is superb, but this is a Zeiss lens.

The only drawback is having to use Sony's special chips. But I bought a couple of 2 GIG cards on super sale. And, the cost of digital storage is dropping faster than the Dow Jones.

The perfect "tweener" camera. It is between the tiny full of compromises cameras and the bigger prosumer cameras. It does not do RAW but then it is a tweener.

"Sony Cybershot"
Bought this camera for my 21 year old daughter and she loves it. The screen in the back is just the right size and so far no complaints!

"Image Quality Not As Expected"
I bought this camera after much research- My initial impressions were good. But when I brought up my first picture on Photoshop I immediately realized that something was wrong. The picture quality was not good. I tried all the settings and I took a lot of comparision shots with my Canon S80 and the Sony. The daylight shots are fine. The flash shots are terrible. Very grainy, speckled and fuzzy; like another reviewer stated here. I thought that it might be a faulty camera, but when the daylight shots came out fine I came to the conclusion that it is the camera.
I have pulled my S80 off eBay and I'm returning the Sony. Now I'm looking at the Sony W200, W300 and most likely going to get the Canon SD100. If you buy the WD170 camera, take test shots before comitting...

UPDATE- After looking closely at all the reviews, I have come to the conclusion that all of the subcompact cameras suffer the Sony image quality problems to some extent. I am sticking with my Canon S80 for now...

"Another Awesome Sony Product"
I purchased this camera to replace my older Sony DSC-W5. I loved the image and build quality of the W5 but, I wanted a smaller/lighter camera. The DSC-W170 also offered twice the megapixels, a wide angle lens, 5x zoom lens, bigger/better LCD and a rechargeable Li-Ion battery. The DSC-W170 is very well built, unlike some of the cheaper plastic cameras on the market. For example, Sony used a metal tripod mount instead of a plastic one. Sony used a high quality Carl Zeiss lens on this camera, much like other models in the Cyber-Shot series. However, it's a wide angle lens, so you can fit more people in a shot without backing up. On the back, you will find a beautiful 2.7" LCD, displaying an impressive 230k pixels. Features are where the W170 really shines. It features Sony's "Super SreadyShot" optical image stabilization, which really helps reduce unwanted camera shake. The face detection works very well, as does the smile shutter. A new Sony feature this year is child and adult priority, which amazingly works. "Happy Faces" is an in-camera editing feature that can make a person look like they are smiling, which works to an extent. Battery life is rated at ~400 shots, which is accurate and plenty long enough for most people. Noise is not usually a problem if you don't go above ISO 800. It also has an "Easy" mode that takes away the more advanced/confusing functions. Some of the other reviewers mentioned poor image quality, which is not true. I wouldn't expect a compact point & shoot to get better results than a chunky DSLR. Image quality is excellent and most users will be very happy with the images this camera can take. Overall, the Sony DSC-W170 is a high quality camera that should satisfy anyone looking for a compact point & shoot camera. I hope this helps!

"Best Point & Shoot I've ever owned."
I have owned several point and shoots over the last few years and have close to 20,000 pictures posted on Flickr from these cameras. All of these cameras were Canon's. While the picture quality of these cameras was decent to good the actual camera itself wouldn't hold up. I was buying a new one every year because something would break or stop working.

I went in search of a more durable camera and ended up with the Pentax Optio W60 because of its claims of durability. It was a durable camera but took the worst pictures I've ever seen. After playing with it for 2 days I sent it back.

I did more research and narrowed it down to this Sony and some other Canon's. I wanted to make a change for nothing more than to see if I could keep a camera longer than 1 year without it breaking. Not only is this Sony durable and easy to use - the picture quality is incredible. The focus and the realistic colors are so amazing I want to go back and retake all of my pictures.