I bought this camcorder about a week about because I decided that it was best for my price range. I waited and waited and finally it arrived. At first I noticed the size and of the camcorder made it very sleek and its weight will never bother you. I learned how to use it in about 2 days, taking digital pictures is a snap, just insert the memory card and click the button named "photo shot" and you have yourself a digital picture. The zoom on this camcorder is good, 10x Optical Zoom and 100x Digital Zoom. The digital zoom might no seem apealing but if you haven't noticed yet most people that buy digital camcorder with let say 720x digital zoom usually end up using only 50x mainly because the video gets way to pixely as you go further then lets say 80x. Please read below.
LCD
This camcorder has a 3" color display, really easy to look at so you can play back video from your memorable vocation on a large LCD without even arriving home to see it on the television. The LCD might consume alot of energy but if you use the view finder you can consume a large amount of energy and still see the video in color which I think is great.
Digital Pictures
You can take digital pictures in a breeze with this camcorder, all you do is hit the on buttom then push "photo shot" and you have yourself a digital picture. After that you take out the memory card and snap it into the memory card reader and you can view the pictures on your computer. There are two different kinds picture resalutions, 1200X900 and 640X480. If you use the low resulution you can do digital affects such as mirror ect. Even though the pictures are low quality (about 0.6 megapixels) it is still a better choice because you can store more low resulution pictures on the memory card. If you don't want to use digital affects or store lot of pictures go for the high resulution, the pictures are great quality.
Size & Weight
This camera might seem quit big in the picture but instead it is fairly small which in my opinion is a good thing. The camera does not weight alot, even though I do not know the actual weight it is fairly light. It is probably one of the most sleek and portable camcorder you will find.
Ease Of Use
If you are looking for a camcorder that you can't wait to use or need to use it right away this is a great choice. In 2 days I learned how to take digital pictures, how to use digital affects, how to take video, how to look at the pictures that you took on the LCD, How to connect the camcorder to the computer, how to connect the camcorder to the TV and lots more features. I'm sure you will too. I did not have to even touch the manual to learn these features, this camcorder is so simple to use a 5 year old can use it!
Zoom
Some people might reconsider purchasing this camcorder because of the poor zoom that it provides, you are wrong. Even though the Digital Zoom is not as high as other camcorders this is why you don't need more than 100x digital zoom:
1:You will rarely ever use more than 50x digital zoom
2:As you zoom in more and more the video get funky and pixely, which makes you want to zoom out.
3:You can only use digital zoom if you want to pictures on low resulution but however if you want to take video its not a problem.
Features
This camcorder has many feautures, they include Multi, Picture in Picture, Wipe, Mix, Strobe, Gain-Up, Trail, Mosaic, Mirror, Nega, Sepia, Mono, and Solari. It also has Night Mode which is great, I took video at 7:00 p.m after watching the video everyone thought it was at complete daylight! The features on this camcorder are definetly worth using, you can make white and black movies and more.
Price
I found this camcorder pricey, I paid $616 (after S&H and sales Tax). I found other models from JVC, Sony and Samsung but I still decided to get the Panasonic mainly because of all the Praises I have heard about it and mainly because of the size, weight and feautures. However if you are looking for a affordable digital camcorder which might not have some of the features that this one does then you might want to consider buying that one. However if you want sleekness, compatibility, features and ease of use I recommend this one. I also recommend this camcorder if you have no experience with camcorders at all mainly because the it takes only about 1 day to learn that basics without even reading the manual.
Accesories
This camcorder comes with a load of accesories the one I like best is the 16 megabyte memory card and the memory card reader. Most camcorders only come with a 8 mb memory card which really can't store anything, this one can store twice as much which is if you were wondering aout 30 pictures on high resolution. The memory card reader is a great accesory too, all you do is hook it up to UBS port and slide the memory card right in and the pictures pop out on your screen, its that easy! It also comes with the jacks that you need to hook up your camcorder to your computer and your television which alot of camcorders might not include. You are getting about $100 in accesory total.
Final Say
If you are looking for looks, compatebility, sleekness and beatifull video then get this camcorder. If you want an affordable digital camcorder then try another model. However if you have never used a digital camcorder before I highy recommend this one. If you want to see the picture quality on this camcorder them e-mail me and I will send you a picture of my cat so you can see how the picture quality is.
