Sony A550 vs Sony S950

Lets take a more detailed look at the Sony A550 and Sony S950, one being a Entry-Level DSLR and the other is a Small Sensor Compact and both of them are designed by Sony. There exists a crucial gap between the image resolutions of the A550 (14MP) and S950 (10MP) and the A550 (APS-C) and S950 (1/2.3") provide different sensor sizes.

Pentax 17 Pre-Orders Outperform Expectations by a Landslide

The A550 was manufactured 10 months later than the S950 which means that they are both of a similar generation. Both of these cameras feature different body design with the Sony A550 being a Compact SLR camera and the Sony S950 being a Compact camera.

Before getting into a complete comparison, here is a short highlight of how the A550 grades against the S950 in the way of portability, imaging, features and an overall grade.

Here is a sample of the gallery pics for Sony Alpha DSLR-A550 and Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S950. The entire galleries are provided at Sony A550 Gallery and Sony S950 Gallery.

If you are going to lug around your camera often, you will need to consider its weight and volume. The Sony A550 provides external measurements of 137mm x 104mm x 84mm (5.4" x 4.1" x 3.3") accompanied by a weight of 632 grams (1.39 lbs) whilst the Sony S950 has sizing of 93mm x 56mm x 24mm (3.7" x 2.2" x 0.9") along with a weight of 167 grams (0.37 lbs).

Check out the Sony A550 and Sony S950 in the new Camera with Lens Size Comparison Tool.

Do not forget, the weight of an Interchangeable Lens Camera will vary depending on the lens you select at that moment. Underneath is a front view size comparison of the A550 compared to the S950.

Using dimensions and weight, the portability grade of the A550 and S950 is 63 and 94 respectively.

Quite often, its difficult to visualize the contrast between sensor measurements merely by checking specifications. The photograph below should offer you a far better sense of the sensor measurements in the A550 and S950.

To sum up, both of the cameras feature different resolutions and different sensor measurements. The A550 due to its larger sensor is going to make getting shallower depth of field simpler and the Sony A550 will resolve more detail due to its extra 4MP. Greater resolution can also let you crop pics way more aggressively. The fresher A550 provides an edge with regard to sensor technology.