This was the first camcorder i owned and it served me well for many years. i have used it for making short films with m friends and genral point and shoot activities. I think for someone inexperienced with camera's this is a great starter model.

Features: It offers all the standard features of a small handicam, easy access record button and zoom controls, viewfinder and fip out screen. Then through the menu access via the screen and buttons you have all the other settings such as shooting modes and effects. the shooting modes are great if you do not want to have to deal with manual controls as you can just select the desired option and your ready to go. the effects are all pretty lame and wouldn't really bother with them at all apart from maybe the B/W and sepia options. if you are more familiar with camera functions though and would like easy access to features such as focus and shutter speeds and white balance etc. i wouldn't really recomend this model. It also has the standard playback controls easy located above the screen. it output options are good with a firewire out for PC capture and a composite lead to conect to the tv for playback.

Quality: as far as point and shoot camera's go the image quality from this was pretty good obviously not up to todays HD standards but good none the less. it suffers from pixilation and grain issues in low light conditions though and its nightime modes don't help this much.

Audio: the built in mic provides reasonable sound quality in indoor situations as long as you are facing the subject and in a close range. outside the sound is very easily distorted with wind and other background noises.

overall it is a good quality camera from a very respectable company who know what their doing. if you want a cheap reliable point and shoot handicam i would recomend it.