I had another good lesson in economics a couple of weeks
ago. For some time, my trusty Cyber-Shot
DSC-WX80 had a problem – the camera equivalent of retinitis, I think. On the
right-center of the image was a small blurred spot.
At first I
thought it was on the lens, so I cleaned the lens. Nope. It persisted. So I did
what any photographer would do – I took it to the local Sony Service Center to
have them check it out.
Two nice
fellows there – Leo and Chris – took a good look at the camera, pressed this
and that, snapped a few shots, showed it to a couple more service people, and
came to the conclusion that it was inside the camera. Maybe moisture, maybe
mold. Who knows?
The only way to really find out would be to open it up.
If the camera
were inside the one-year guarantee, it would cost me c. $4.00 to fix.
Otherwise, it would cost about $94.00 or something like that, and I’d have to
wait four to six weeks. Well, the camera was almost two years old, so the $4.00 fix was
out of the question; I told them to go ahead and fix it for the higher price
and I’d go get a cheap backup camera in the meantime to use during an upcoming
trip to Las Vegas.
Leo came up
with a better solution – get a new camera; it’ll be cheaper in the long run to do that, in the
area of about $169 or so. Chris looked up their Sony model DCS-WX220, which was
the newer replacement for the one I had. He went on the Internet and found one
on sale at Best Buy for $149.
Best Buy, here
I come. My new camera has all the features of the old one, with an 18.2
megapixel picture (compared to 16.2), and a 10x zoom lens (compared to 8x). The only thing is that the new camera is black, and the old one is red (a color I really liked ... oh well).
See? Service
techs, when they’re local and not talking to you on the phone from a foreign
country, are a great help. Kudos to Sony!
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