While I am still waiting to have a more in-depth review on Sony's latest camera, RX100II, I can't just let my vacation pass without something new! So I got this new member from Sony's NEX family, NEX-3N!
I've got many friends asking me before, "How do you think about the NEX-3N?" My answer is always neutral: only get it if you need it. To be honest, I wasn't particularly excited about this camera. As compared to my NEX-5N, which is an older model in the NEX 5 series, it has less control, not better image quality (although it is still far better than most point-and-shoot cameras). The advantage of NEX-3N is that it has a flip screen, that makes self-portrait much easier. Apparently, the target market is young ladies with passion about taking self-portraits and also want superior image quality. It is also smaller in size that makes this camera suitable for daily uses.
Below are some unboxing photos of NEX-3N. I am bringing it to Japan for vacation and more photos will be uploaded soon!
The front view. My unit is a white body made of plastic. The camera comes with lens 20mm F2.8 pancake lens. It suits NEX-3N great in terms of portability.
Top view. The playback button now is place at the top panel, which takes me a little while to adjust to that. The shutter, zoom and power button are integrated together.
The control wheel is similar to those on other NEX bodies.
The built-in flash light that NEX-5N doesn't have! The trade off is that NEX-3N doesn't have hot shoe.. But I believe most NEX-3N users won't need that anyway.
Flipped screen makes self-portraiting fairly easy. However, that's the only way you can flip the screen. It can be flipped in the other direction.
The 20mm F2.8 pancake lens is somewhat similar to the previous 16mm F2.8, a fast and wide prime lens. The 16mm F2.8 has been criticised on its image quality. Let's see how the new 20mm F2.8 performs!
The lens also comes with a lens cap/hood that is used on E30mm 3.5.
The SD card slot is now put together with other output port, different from NEX-5N where battery and card slot are placed next to each other.
A side-by-side comparison with my Sony NEX-5N. NEX-3N is slightly taller but narrower. The most noticeable difference is the size of the grip. Clearly, NEX-3N's grip is much smaller. I guess that's also because the target group is young ladies?
From the top, the NEX-3N body is thicker than 5N, which offsets the slimmer E20 2.8 lens and makes two cameras almost identical in thickness.
I just landed Tokyo a while ago. Please check the blog regularly for more photos taken by NEX-3N!
