I Feel So Dumb...

I've owned both a Canon P&S (Powershot a720) and the Sony a77 and I can agree that the Canon colour always felt nice, particularly for outdoor shots. Where the Sony seems to produce consistently 'cold' photos, the Canon was always 'warm'.

I've also had a Sony a77 start malfunctioning on me, at which point the white balance was the major thing affected, and suddenly all my photos weren't just cold, but were almost blue.

So while some might agree that this is almost normal for the a77, you may still want to see if you can borrow a different a77 and double check that yours isn't malfunctioning like mine did.