Sony HDR-SR1
This is one of the coolest looking, best performing camcorders of the year. It’s pricy, but I really feel like you really get what you pay for on this one. It’s got a really nice, sleek design, great features, and lots of hard drive storage. The features and menus have been reworked and are easy to use. And the enormous LCD display doesn’t hurt either.
I really like the way the LCD screen folds in flush to the rest of the body. This Camcorder is the epitome of “space-saver” while still packing a performance punch. The camcorder doubles as a pretty decent digital camera with 4 megapixel still image capture.
It does well in low light, and has excellent image stabilization. It has a powerful 10X optical zoom, allowing you to get in close to anything you need to.
There are some really handy automatic picture settings that help out for most of the typical situations that you might face when filming. Also, one thing I found impressive is that the zoom lever on the top right of the camcorder. As well, there is a multifunction ring around the lens that allows you to easily choose different focal options.
A nice feature of this is the large hard drive space. You don’t have to deal with tapes or cd’s. Videos and still shots are all recorded on the camcorder hard drive. You should be able to get approximately 4 hours of high definition video out of the internal memory.
All in all, if you have a little over a thousand dollars to put towards a digital camcorder, then this is a good one to lay it down on. I’m pretty confident that you wont be disappointed.
View Pricing and Product Details for the Sony HDR-SR1.
Reviewed by Peter Ensio 01.24.2007