Convenient Camcorders

Inexpensive Camcorder Puts Great Video in Your Pocket

Though DVD and hard-disk drive (HDD) camcorders are quite portable, they're much too big to slip into a coat pocket. I tried the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG65, which costs $400 and is only slightly larger than a typical point-and-shoot camera, so it would be perfect for carrying inside a ski jacket next winter when you hit the slopes. Because it records video and still images to an SD Card--a storage mechanism with no moving parts--the CG65 should be able to handle hard knocks better than an HDD or DVD camcorder. The CG65's case feels plasticky, however, and not very rugged.

In my informal tests, the CG65 produced generally high-quality video, which it shoots in the MPEG-4 format (all of the other camcorders reviewed for this story employ the MPEG-2 format). In my opinion the video captured under low lighting conditions was especially impressive. Overall, the CG65 received a score of Very Good for video quality. Footage taken indoors at night looked good but not great: Errant pixels danced in shadow areas, and exposure changes occurred with disconcerting abruptness as I moved the camcorder into well-lit areas from darker ones.

The CG65 does a nice job of doubling as a digital camera. It records still images at resolutions of up to 6 megapixels, and it was one of just three camcorders tested for this review that earned a score of Superior for photo image quality.

Its 2.5-inch LCD is slightly smaller than the wide-aspect screens included on most of the other camcorders we tested. Another drawback is the CG65's short battery life (a skimpy 74 minutes), which means that you'll need to carry an extra lithium ion cell with you, since the first one will run out long before you reach the video capacity of a 4GB SD Card (2 hours, 45 minutes at the highest quality setting). You don't get an SD Card in the box either, so purchasing a 4GB card (for example) will run you an extra $45 or so.

Eric Butterfield

Tracey Capen and John Poultney are freelance writers based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Eric Butterfield is a senior associate editor for PC World.