I purchased this camera August 2003. It worked wonderfully for at least a solid year, it was easy to manipulate the features and has a nice video function. However, after the initial year I started to have "lens mechanism" issues. The second year gave me puzzling "camera-off-in-the-middle-of-the-shot" instances that lead me to think that it was just the battery not cranking out the necessary amperage for that shot. So, batteries were replaced, oh, and the included rechargeable batteries could not hold enough juice no matter how long they were charged for...that probably was due to me recharging the batteries when they were not yet spent. Anyway, the third year I started to have the lens not wanting to retract after power down (I would have an instance where the camera would shut off in mid-shot and the lens would remain out). I would power cycle the camera and the lens would just retract, pause, then extend and power goes off...most frustrating. I learned that by removing the batteries, reinserting them, the power up would operate normally...strange because they were the same batteries!
Overall, when the camera worked, it was quite good, but it just sucked when you really wanted to catch a special moment with your young child and the camera would go into "lens-out, power-off" mode. I personally never experienced the dreaded "distorted or black" screens that many others had with the same camera manufactured around this period, lucky me, Sort of.
The other day, the camera was dropped from about 4 feet (1.2 meters) and now the lens doesn't extend at all. Cosmetically, the camera looks pretty darn good for 4 years of use, hardly a scratch! But although I can still go into SETUP and VIEW modes, I can no longer use either CAMERA or VIDEO mode due to the unextending lens.
Bottom line: after 4 years the DSC-P72 was good enough for me taking (grab-the-camera-and-go) pictures, but I would not replace this with another Sony, Sorry, nope. I will go for a Cannon, a real camera made by real camera makers! I own a Cannon AE (yep, purchased 1981) and although I love the instant gratification of digital cameras, NOTHING makes match to the depth-of-field quality as film cameras do.
