Sony Xacti, almost xacti what I wanted. (Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD700)

Member Name: Lee

Product:	Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD700
Date:	27/08/08 (192 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb video, great price, very compact

Disadvantages: Awful Lens cap, poor camera stills quaility

Video quality is exceptional, and with an 8 Gb SDHC card, over an hour of the highest quality video is possible. Due to its small form factor it is so easy to put into your pocket and pull out for rapid shooting.

The short comings in order of priority are:
-The truly dreadful lens cap, it really spoils its ease of use. No excuse.
-The quality of the photos is poor with awful pixilation around the edges of objects. No excuse really when a camera phone can do better. That said, it might be that mine is faulty.
-Too many cables, combined with the cradle make it painful to take away anywhere. When will manufacturers standardise this like everything else they do, so only one cable (say HDMI with charging ability ??) is required and no need for a cradle to pack them all in.
-5x Zoom makes videoing sporting events a bit pointless as it looks like ants
-Conversely the lens is not wide angle by any stretch so close up videoing especially inside results in a lot of clipped heads
-Worryingly it has white screened on me a couple of times.

That said, sort the still photos and the lens cap and for the price it has the potential to be a world beater.

Summary: Superb video spoilt by a cumbersome lens cap and substandard stills quality

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