I purchased this camcorder a while back as I wanted to start making movies for fun. It's a great size and very lightweight. Perfect for carrying around and even came with a strap to carry it around your neck. The swivel screen is useful but I didn't find myself using it much. The zoom on this thing is unreal, its 25x optical zoom so you can really get in there but beware as although it will zoom in, the further you go in the more blurry it gets. The battery takes around 2-3 hours to charge fully, and lasts for around 3 hours on/off constantly, a bit longer if your not using it all the time. It has a rewind playback feature which is really cool. As for picture quality it  Read the complete review