Panasonic continues its dominance in delivering compact cameras having flexible lens with its all new Lumix DMC-ZR3. The Lumix DMC-ZR3 comes with a 25mm-equivalent wide-angle lens and an 8x optical zoom lens, apart from all this the camera gets a body that’s hardly an inch thick. The ZR3’s lens is the same that Panasonic’s ZR1 had; in point of fact both the cameras are almost identical. The Lumix ZR3 has around 14 megapixel camera, instead of the 12 megapixel and it now can also capture the video in AVCHD Lite format. There are some other feature enhancements here as well, but primarily there are only two major upgrades, and both of which according to us are needless. On a whole the ZR3 is a decent point-to-shoot camera and offers comparatively great image quality. The control panel for the camera is rather simple and easy enough to be understood by the out of the box users. The top floor of the camera houses a silver plastic Mode dial, which  [...]

The Kodak Playsport or the Kodak Zx3 is the completion of Kodak's Zx1. Now, while the Zx1 was a weather resistant camcorder, the all new Kodak Playsport aka Zx3 is proclaimed to be a waterproof camera up to 10 feet or can withstand water less than 9.8 feet's. The camcorder also has plethora of other betterments or updates that makes it a decent camera, both in water and on land. But if you consider the price of the camcorder there actually isn't anything serious to complain about, but still if you are looking for a wide range of features in your first camera then its better you keep your hunt on. But if you are fine with limited set of features and are looking for a reasonably priced HD pocket video camcorder capable of withstanding external environmental blows like water or sometimes windy environments, then the Kodak Playsport definitely is a great choice to go with. The overall design of the camcorder is a bit "rugged", which is reminiscent  [...]

The Sony Handycam HDR-XR550V priced at $1000, can be a real pain for some of the users, especially considering the accouterments of the camera. The Handycam HDR-XR550V has a huge a 3.5-inch LCD, G series lens, a 240GB hard disk, EVF, iris and shutter controls and mic and headphone jacks. Basically the HDR-XR550V and its almost identical sibling CX550V are the high-end models belonging to the high-end Prosumer line of Sony. The CX550V has somewhat different design than its siblings and also the recording media ability of the camera is a bit different. The design difference between the two cameras can easily be credited to camera’s storage type. This is because of the fact that the CX550V comes with 64GB of fitted flash memory and XR550V comes with a hard drive. The frontage of the camera contains a huge-barreled lens with an electronic lens and flash positioned on top of it. The trademark Sony’s stale a manual control dial is again present in  [...]

The Sony HDR-CX500V is one of the two siblings of the hard drive based Sony HDR-XR500V and Sony HDR-XR520V, but has entered the market six months after its flawed sibling entered the market. But the good thing this time is that the HDR-CX500V has got the much needed interface enhancement from its siblings. But thing here is that it still is not as compact as some of the other camcorders we’ve seen in the market, and on the other hand we don’t  think that a slight change in the layout and the improved interface is worth a tradeoff. But some users might go for the trade-off to save themselves from the operational annoyances, while the others will stay out and go for the same high-class performance and video in a bit more compact camcorders. The Sony HDR-CX500V also comes with its sibling CX520V, and the two camcorders only differ in terms of their memory, while the HDR-CX500V has 32GB of inbuilt memory, the HDR-CX520V has 64GB. Most of the capabilities  [...]

Priced at $279.99 the Flip SlideHD mini-camcorder is comparatively higher priced than the class to which the camera belongs. Though the immense 16 GB internal memory of the camera can be attributed the excess weight of the camera. The straight 3 inch wide touchscreen LCD of the camera also is responsible for the slight weight increase. The wide LCD screen of the camera not only is touchscreen, but also acts as a screen for viewing photos and videos, and “slide” opens at a comfortable angle. This Flip SlideHD also makes shooting and sharing videos an easy maneuver, so easy that almost everyone can do it. The humongous LCD screen of SlideHD is used for controlling most of the functions of the camera, as a result of which you will see a really limited amount of physical controls on the body of the camera. As a matter of fact there only are a couple of them. The first physical control is positioned on the right spine of the camera and is a small power  [...]

The Sony Handycam HDR-CX110 is a follow-up to the CX100 (as we mentioned above) and just as the CX100, the CX110 also is decently sized and can easily fit into big jacket’s pockets and bags. The HDR-CX110 belongs to the reasonably priced HD camcorder category from Sony. The HDR-CX110 is comparatively bigger than the mini-camcorders we’ve seen in the market, both in terms of price and in terms of price as well as size. But at the same time the HDR-CX110 comes with plenty of features that we found were missing from mini-camcorders, and some really important features that we found were the capability to capture 3 megapixel stills and the 25x zoom lens. In terms of design the HDR-CX110 is more attractive then the XR150 and CX150. Although its slippery exterior might concern some buyers, the sufficiently sized body of the camera gives ample grip and makes it easy for the camera holders to hold on. The screen here according to us is the same, which  [...]

The Sony Handycam HDR-CX150, HDR-CX110 and XR150 they all belongs to Sony’s budget-priced HD triumvirate. All the aforementioned camcorder models differs by their storage media and color, the HDR-CX110 doesn’t have any en suite memory, while the HDR-CX150 comes with an integrated 16GB memory and the XR150 comes with a humongous 120GB hard disk. Apart from this the HDR-CX150 and the other models mentioned above belongs to the first generation of Sony’s camcorder to support approximately all SD cards. While the HDR-CX150 comes in red and black, the only color choice for XR150 is black and the same for CX110 is blue choice. The screen in Sony Handycam HDR-CX150 is almost the same that we saw CX100, and as a matter of fact we think it’s the same from that camera, but it works well here considering the size of the camera. But using it under direct sunlight is a real tricky job. The button set used here is pretty common with buttons including direct  [...]

The Sony Handycam DCR-SR68 the hard drive based entry-level standard-definition camcorder by Sony. The camcorder comes with plethora of catchy features, but the some that caught our attention includes its big size Megazoom lens, reasonably small size and humongous storage capacity, but more than anything else the fact that all this comes at a price tag of $400 was the thing that got our attention. Even operating the DCR-SR68 is pretty easy, mentioned that you are familiar with the operation of digital cameras. Though, there is endless menu system for DCR-SR68, but there are not sufficient shooting options for the operators. Just like most of the other camcorders from its class the video quality result for the camera is pretty usual, particularly if you are planning to watch them on full screen large HDTV or if you are a high-definition content fanatic. The controls on the body of the DCR-SR68 include a button to switch between video and photo modes  [...]

The Sony Handycam DCR-SR88 is the standard definition entry level camcorder by Sony. The DCR-SR88 flaunts a small size, but despite its small size the camcorder offers plenty of useful features such as large storage capacity and huge Megazoom lens. But the most important thing that we liked here is that despite so many features the camera is reasonably pried well under $400. The operation of the camera is again pretty simple and despite the immeasurable menu systems in the camera, the operation is simple even for the first time users (mentioned that you are familiar with the operation of digital cameras). We won’t say that the DCR-SR88 delivers awful performance, but at the same time we can’t say that the performance here is exceptional. So to make things simpler lets put it in this way, the DCR-SR88 offers video quality just as you would get from any of the camcorder, and in a general the performance is good but if you watch it on HDTV it would  [...]

The Fujifilm FinePix JZ500 and Fujifilm FinePix JZ300 are Fujifilm’s effort to offer one and all something to cheer about. In their effort to make Fujifilm has tried real hard and while they have brought some interesting features, there are some irrelevant features as well. One of the interesting features that we found here is the 10x zoom wide angle lens. Consider the $249.95 price of Fujifilm FinePix JZ500, the feature set offered here is real great. But at the same time there are certain features that you will find irrelevant. The Fujifilm FinePix JZ500 and Fujifilm FinePix JZ300 is almost the same camera with the only difference being of resolution and color choices. The Fujifilm FinePix JZ500 is available only in black color, while there are color choices of silver and black for 12 megapixels JZ300 can. The controls on the camera are pretty basic and hence even the out of the box users won’t have any problems in operating the camera. Located  [...]