An okay camcorder

Author's Rating:

Pros: mic jack

Cons: lack of manual white balance, sub par image in low light situations

The Bottom Line: 
It's one of the few entry level camcorder with a mic jack. That's the main value of this camcorder.

Author's Review
This is a nice camcorder. I'd say it's best feature is that it has a mic jack so that you can hook up an external mic. The internal mic isn't too bad considering the price. However, in the case you are interested in film making, it's a common rule that you want good audio first. As long as the audio is decent you can settle for imagery that is sub par. The downside to this camcorder is that you have to buy extra equipment if you want to be able to download footage to the computer to edit. I had to get a dazzle which cost me about $80. This camcorder lasted pretty good for 3 years. Recently it has suddenly and mysteriously lost the abililty to record sound--however there was some rough handling so it might not be a flaw of the camcorder itself.

This is a great camcorder to buy if you are just looking to record memories. It's cheap and gets has good visual. If you are planning on using it to get some begining experience in filmmaking however beware that you will have to buy a device to download footage to a computer. Also, there is a lack of manual white balance. There is an indoor/outdoor option with the whitebalance which gets decent imagery in most cases. However if you are serious about wanting to make a good film get something with a manual white balance. Also you are victum to the camcorder's auto focus. Imagery is terrible in low light situations. There is a small light built into the camcorder but it's not very powerful.

All and all, this is a good camcorder to record memories and make random things to put on youtube.