Sony W290 vs Sony A33

Its time to take a deeper look at the Sony W290 vs Sony A33, former being a Small Sensor Compact while the latter is a Entry-Level DSLR and both are designed by Sony. The resolution of the W290 (12MP) and the A33 (14MP) is pretty close but the W290 (1/2.3") and A33 (APS-C) use different sensor size.

Photography Glossary

The W290 was unveiled 18 months before the A33 which makes the cameras a generation apart from one another. Both of these cameras offer different body type with the Sony W290 being a Compact camera and the Sony A33 being a Compact SLR camera.

Before getting in to a detailed comparison, below is a quick summation of how the W290 scores versus the A33 with regards to portability, imaging, features and an overall grade.

This is a preview of the gallery images for Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W290 & Sony SLT-A33. The full galleries are viewable at Sony W290 Gallery & Sony A33 Gallery.

In case you're intending to lug around your camera, you will need to consider its weight and size. The Sony W290 offers outer dimensions of 98mm x 57mm x 23mm (3.9" x 2.2" x 0.9") accompanied by a weight of 167 grams (0.37 lbs) and the Sony A33 has specifications of 124mm x 92mm x 85mm (4.9" x 3.6" x 3.3") and a weight of 500 grams (1.10 lbs).

See the Sony W290 vs Sony A33 in our completely new Camera & Lens Size Comparison Tool.

Remember, the weight of an ILC will differ based on the lens you use during that time. Here is the front view over all size comparison of the W290 against the A33.

Using dimensions and weight, the portability rating of the W290 and A33 is 94 and 67 respectively.

More often than not, its difficult to visualize the gap in sensor measurements just by researching technical specs. The visual here should give you a much better sense of the sensor sizes in the W290 and A33.

As you can tell, both the cameras enjoy different megapixels and different sensor measurements. The W290 having a smaller sensor is going to make getting shallower depth of field harder and the Sony A33 will render greater detail having an extra 2MP. Higher resolution can also make it easier to crop pictures far more aggressively. The older W290 will be behind with regard to sensor tech.