For the last few weeks I have been searching for as many reviews as I could on the Sanyo HD 1010 to help me make a decision on which camcorder to purchase. Because I could only base my decision on the 4 reviews that I read here (which did help immensely), I thought I'd share my opinion of this camcorder to help other potential consumers make up their mind.
I should tell you that I am a professional wedding photographer (still images, 14 years) so that you have a reference point of who's telling you what. I received the Sanyo HD 1010 3 days ago, and had the entire weekend to play around with it.
The quick answer: For my purposes, I love this camcorder. However, this camcorder is not for everyone-you should determine what you plan on using the camera for before deciding to purchase (see below, two paragraphs down).
My wife and I love to travel. I was looking for a camcorder that tooks great video, was portable and took decent still images. The 1010 does just that. I've looked at the Canon HF 100 and the Samsung HMX20C and they are also small, but the 1010 just feels smaller to me and more portable. I own a Sony PC9 which was a great camcorder in its day, but it has stayed at home the last five years. (I like to have a camera that I can put on my belt clip or is light enough to dangle from my neck.) The video's that I've used have come from point and shoot cameras that took decent video clips. The image quality (from the point and shoot cameras) is certainly not as good as mini DV, which the PC9 is, but it was always there for the taking. I only recently became interested in shooting better quality video as the size of these new camcorders have come down recently. Understand that I am not replacing my still camera (the Canon G7 is my travel camera) and don't recommend anyone to replace their still camera with this all in one camcorder. However, the 1010 does take nice stills (a little oversaturated, but quite acceptable). You obviously can only use one camera at a time, so when you are using the 1010 and want to snap a quick photo while you're shooting video or you stop shooting video, it's nice to know you can get a decent photo with this camcorder.
The reason this camcorder is not for everyone is the poor image stabilization. If the 1010 had optical image stabilization, it would be hands down perfect! Does this ruin it for me? NO. Most people have a tendency to overuse the zoom lens and pan too quickly. Most of my videos are taken at wide or mid range (travel, scenic footage and family gatherings). When I do pan, I hold the camcorder as steady as possible and SLOWLY pan, almost exaggerated. I do this whether or not the camcorder has image stabilization. You shouldn't rely on the image stabilization as a crutch. If you use good techniques for average subjects your videos will be fine. I shot 12 minutes of a family birthday party using the techniques I described and my videos were fine, no "motion sickness videos". However, if plan on buying the 1010 to videotape your young children or children's sports, I don't recommend this camera. That's where a good optical image stabilizer will shine.
Ok, my observations:
* As I said, I love this product. It produces beautiful videos, better than any camcorder I've ever owned. I tried all the different quality settings and decided to stick with the 1080i 60fps as my permanent setting. On this setting, I didn't see any artifacts, or lagging, when panning with image stabilization (IS) off. I really need to do some more comparisons with IS on, but this is my initial impression. I looked at my brother in law's HI Def Sony with him. He's a computer/techie expert and we looked together and both agreed on the same things. The 60fps settings on both the 1080i and 720i were better than the 1080p 30fps and 720p 30fps settings. I know everyone makes a big deal about the 1080p setting, but 60fps LOOKS better. It's smoother. The 1080i and 720i at 60fps are very close in quality on the High Def set, but on my 36 inch Sony, the 720i when panned had some artifacts (don't know why; didn't happen on the Hi-def set. I'm sure you techies know). But the reason I'm going to leave it on the highest quality is two reasons: 1.) You should always record at the best setting. You can always down convert, but you can't upconvert. 2. ) With the software(Nero 8) that comes packaged with the product, I am able to burn a standard DVD taken from 1080i 60fps footage. As others have said, I cannot view the footage at normal speed (views jerky) on my PC(windows XP, laptop, dual core), but I can still burn it un-edited to a DVD which plays beautifully. I don't have time anyway to edit videos on a PC. What I CAN do, is splice the mpeg 4 clips together in the camera (very easy to do!) and/or edit them in camera, and then burn to the DVD. It's not Hi-def quality, but it's DVD quality and still better than any other home video that I have ever produced. I plan on getting a separate USB drive to keep my "albums" in Hi-def and play them back on Hi-def TV, and use the DVD's as a lower quality (but still good) back up and/or to share with family/friends. FYI, the 12 minutes of footage took roughly 50 minutes to burn. Not bad! I haven't researched recording on to a Blu-Ray in Hi-def, but even if it's not till next year, the hi-def footage will be there when I'm ready to.
* I love the size. Not really pocketable as some people claim (a jacket yes, pants, no), but small enough to put on your hip or dangle from your neck (I use a Canon neckstrap made for their Elph camera's).
* You can "pull" high quality jpegs from your video footage. I was really amazed at how good the images are when you do this! Very clean and smooth.
* The holster case from Sanyo is so-so. It's ok for a house party or short term use, but the clip is not tight on the belt and there is nothing to prevent the camera from falling out if you snag the case on something or have excessive movement. I bought a UV filter to protect the lens and the lens cap does not fit very snug on the filter. The filter falls off EVERY time I put the camera in the holster. I will look around for an aftermarket case to use instead. I would not use the holster outside of the house.
* The controls/menus, etc, are GREAT. I have never had a camera that navigates so easily and quickly when looking to change settings. This is a big plus and not to be overlooked.
* I use a Transcend 8gb class 6 card and it works fine. Did not seem to take a long time to write the file to the card, but my longest clip was only 3 minutes. Maybe if I shot longer footage, a faster card would make a difference.
* Low light footage is FINE. People have complained about the grain in the low light footage. I don't have an issue with this. In very, very low light you are going to get grain. Of course! Here's my experience. I took my family footage at night at a well lit house (lighting from the ceiling, high-caps) and there was no grain. When we went to the dining room for the birthday cake singing, the lights went off, and a single candle lit the room. I had the camera ISO set to AUTO, which appears to me to set the lowest ISO that will take an acceptable video. That's the way it should be. Anyway, when the lights went off, the video went black for a split second until the ISO adjusted to the candle, and the video had some grain but was fine. It's not a professional camera. This low light problem that reviewers are complaining about is a non-issue. When the lights went back on, everything shifted back to normal.
* I had no problem with focus hunting. There was very little of it and it was not noticeable. There was one time when the camcorder shifted completely out of focus but only for a split second. It seemed no different from any other camcorder that I've owned.
* I'm thinking of getting the wide angle converter (for the travel usage), but don't really have an issue with the widest angle of view. Yes, I would have loved a 28mm equivalent, but the 38mm is fine.
* Battery life seems fine, not an issue. Again, haven't used it too much, but I did get two equivalent batteries on Amazon for twenty bucks.
* I find the pistol grip to be quite comfortable and easier to hold than the more common "palmcorders". Also, I use two hands to hold the camera and keep it steady. I keep my left hand on the LCD screen. This helps steady the camera and keep down the jerkiness when zooming in tight and also panning.
* The flash is pretty good. I was very surprised. However, I found that when I used the flash, it seem to oversaturate the image vs. when I turned the flash off and used natural light.

Conclusion: Great camcorder, great video results. Don't let the image stabilization issue stop you from buying this product unless your primary purpose is taking video of your young children and sports action.

This camcorder exceeded even my highest expectations. I have only had it a little over 24 hours but so far it has been incredible. the interface is very intuitive, the movie quality is, as far as I have seen, unsurpassed in a camcorder this size and price, and is everything its advertised to be (and then some).

Pros:
light weight
intuitive menu system
REALLY good screen
4MP digital camera
full HD camcorder
can take still pictures while making a movie (I love this feature!!!)
the WOW factor, because every-time I pull it out to use everyone around me goes WOW, what kind of camera is that. no one believes me its a HD camcorder!
so light and small it can fit in your car/purse/back-pocket/pez dispenser.

cons:
price - for me this wasnt a issue. I was able to replace my camera and add a HD camcorder for a reasonable amount.
grip - I would like to have seen the grip area be a bit larger. I have found a way to make it ft nicely in my hand, but if the grip was either larger or came with, say, a plastic extender maybe that you could put on the bottom it would be great. I have put the camera in 6 different peoples hands and they all said it felt nice after holding it for a few minutes. You just have to find a way that it is comfy for your hand size.

screen rotation - the one and only thing , if I were the designers of the HD1010 that I would change (and now you'll see how nitpicky I am being). If the viewing screen would rotate to the front I could hold the camera in front of me, look at the screen and know I'm in focus / in the shot, and make a quickie recording. Sort of a looking at the camera, blair witch kinda shot. It only rotates to the top and bottom, not to the front. just a wishlist thing. thats the absolute worst thing about the camera so far.

Comparing it to all of the complaints of the HD1000, I can say everything that was complained about in the HD1000 has been fixed. Sanyo even admitted that this is not supposed to be a whole new model, only a upgrade to the HD1000. By that I mean all of the autofocus issues I read about with the HD1000 have been resolved. as a matter of fact I couldnt MAKE it have a focusing problem. I've tried low light, bright light, moving subjects, even the fan in my living room. everything focused perfectly.

The camera takes great pictures also. They turned out better than any digital camera I have ever used, albeit I have always used more of the personal point and shoot olympus / nikon type. Dark rooms, outdoors, inside with fluorescent bulbs, you name it the pictures have been better than what I expected.

Like I said, I have had 6 other people try using it, from my girlfriend with really small hands to a guy I work with who is 6'7" and has Andre the giant hands and they have all loved it. I have not told anyone how to use it. Just handed it to them and said 'I just got a new camera, try it out and see what you think.' With no instructions everyone has taken both movies, pictures, and had smiles while doing it. Its rare to find something electronic that anyone can use with no instructions given and the HD1010 is something you can use straight out of the box. It really is fun to use.

bottom line, if you are looking at getting a camcorder, this one deserves a close look. I am very picky when it comes to electronics, and I am amazed at what they have done with this camcorder/camera. Everything I expected when I ordered it has been greatly exceeded. Great camera, ease of use, quality of the product overall, and in the end quality of the movies it makes... you cant go wrong.

UPDATE
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thanks to everyone who mentioned you can rotate the lens to the front. I was wrong about that, you can! well, that pretty much zero's out the thing I wanted them to change so, my new complaint is that it doesnt come with Kevin Smith to make better movies with it :)

Before HD camcorders became available I had a DV (tape based; standard definition) camcorder. The trouble with DV camcorders is that it is time-consuming to (1) import the movie into the computer and (2) encode it into a suitable format. Needless to say, because of the hassle I wasn't making very many home movies. Then I purchased an Xacti C4. This camera made a big difference. It was tiny, easily fit in the jeans pocket, the image quality was decent for an SD camera, and most importantly, no post-processing was needed! All you had to do was drag & drop files from the camera to the computer. No waiting for the tape to wind. No re-encoding needed either because the file format is already MP4. To watch the movie on TV all I had to do is drop the file into iTunes, then wirelessly stream the movie to AppleTV. It doesn't get any easier than this.

Then HD cameras became available. My first HD camera was Sony HDR-HC1. That's a pretty decent camera. But once again I wasn't making very many movies because HDR-HC1 is tape based, which means a time-consuming process is needed to transfer the movie and to encode to H.264 MP4 format. So I purchased an Xacti HD1010 hoping to repeat my success with the old Xacti C4 but in HD this time.

My first impression when I got the HD1010 was that it is larger and heavier than I expected. This is not a big camera by any means, but my expectations were set by the tiny Xacti C4, and compared to that camera the HD1010 seems big and heavy. It won't fit in my jeans pocket either (unlike the Sony HDR-TG1, the smallest HD camcorder available today.)

What about image quality? I shot a test footage in low light. I was not impressed with the image quality. Fine details seemed to be missing apparently due to heavy noise-reduction. I then decided to compare the HD1010 with my old Sony HDR-HC1. I held the Sony in one hand and the Sanyo in the other and simultaneously shot test footages using both cameras, in a semi-lowlight situation. Initially the Sony appeared to have much better image quality. But that was the raw uncompressed footage. I encoded the Sony footage into H.264 and adjusted the bitrate so that the resulting file is about the same size as the one from Sanyo. Now the Sony and Sanyo quality seemed comparable. In fact the Sanyo seemed to have more accurate color. But the big difference was in image stabilization. I didn't know how good Sony's image stabilization was until I compared it to the Sanyo. The Sanyo movie is very jittery. This is with Sanyo's image stabilization on, and with zoom set to 1x. For HD camcorders stabilization is important, and the HD1010 disappoints in this department.

Another disappointment was that although the MP4 files from the Sanyo are compatible with QuickTime they are not compatible with AppleTV. AppleTV expects 720p 24 fps (frames per second). Sanyo supports 720p but it uses 30 fps, not 24 fps. As a result the file has to be converted before being streamed to AppleTV. It is easy enough to convert using iTunes, but it takes a long time. The resulting file is 960x540 not 1280x720 because iTunes gives priority to preserving the fps and at 30 fps AppleTV only supports 960x540.

I like the fact that this camera comes with a soft case. For comparison Sony charges $50 extra for a soft case for their competing HDR-TG1.

Bottom line: I am a little disappointed because the camera is bigger and heavier than the Xacti C4, the files are not immediately compatible with AppleTV, and most importantly the image stabilization is poor, which means you have to use a tripod. For comparison the Canon HF10 has optical image stabilization and it has a 24 fps mode, both of which would have helped me. The Canon is more expensive but it has 16GB of internal memory which HD1010 doesn't.

I've had the HD1010 for 2 weeks now, I have fiddled with most of the features and used it mainly for filming my kids. I am a Mac user so I can't tell you about the windows software that comes bundled with it.

This is a very good little camera, its small enough to carry in your pocket (I wear cargo shorts a lot) and it has great start up and ready to shoot times (the time it takes you flip open the screen when in sleep mode, a few seconds more when complete off.

First the bad.

To date (Aug 7, 2008) 1920 x 1080 /60 fps does not work with any software I have on my mac (imovie 08, VLC player, Visualhub video converter). Nothing, it shows a green screen or a static partial video fields with audio. I think this is a codec issue that will work it self out in later releases of the software. I emailed Sanyo tech support 2 days ago and still no reply. I am not impressed with them at all.

All other formats 1920x1080 /30, 1280x720 /60, 1280x720/30, 1280x720 /60, 640 x480 /60, 640x480 / 30, 448x336 /300 <-- yeah thats right 300 FPS!, and 320 x 240 /30 work perfectly on the mac, in quicktime and imovie.

One caveat to iMovie imports, if you use a /60 or the /300 fps resolution it will only import half the clip when importing via the camera option in imovie. A simple work around is to simply copy the movies folder from the camera to my desktop when imovie is not active, then start iMovie and choose file, import movies, and browse to that directory. It works flawlessly.

The LCD screen (maybe its just mine) does seems to favor showing a little more red than what is on your actual video.

Finally I wish Sanyo would put Optical image stabilization rather than the software voodoo they do now. The EIS can make you feel slightly sea sick at times, but is still acceptable if you have a steady hand. I am sure the Sony and Canon image stabilization are superior. Other than that, I have very few complaints about this camera.

Now what's great!

#1. MPEG4, that's it no AVCHD to deal with, I can shoot, attach USB, drag to my desktop and go, no waiting for transfers and decompression to intermediate codecs to create huge new files. Literally just shoot n edit (on a mac anyway, I have not tried on a PC, though it does come with windows vista software). If you are a big editor then this camera is perfect, in fact you don't even need to edit, you can upload the mp4s directly to whatever site you use, vimeo, youtube etc. To me simplicity is worth its weight in gold.

#2. Very good video, I am loving the video off this camera, as with any small digicamcorder it works best outside, but even inside with a bit of light its still acceptable.
Outside though it likes watching the discovery channel. I personally shoot everything 1280x720/60 and I am very happy with the resulting quality. go to vimeo.com and search for HD1010 tagged movies to see what this thing can do, also download the originals from each movie using a link on the bottom right side of the page, bang for the buck this thing does some powerful things.

#2. External Mic and headphones jacks. Yes yes it not XLR but they are there and they work.
#3. Full Cold shoe, pop on a Rode Videomic boom mic and you are ready to shoot decent interviews. The Canons HF10 and 100s have a mini cold shoe, I don't think the Sony HG 1 has any external support.


#4. Very good build quality, it looks small n cheap but it feels good in your hand. I could do without the 1980s gold trim or the sparkly stuff in the plastic though,

#5. 300 /fps, it shoots 10 second blasts at 300 fps, then converts it into a 50 second slow-mo video, very cool for slowing down stuff. Its not HD resolution but still pretty neat to watch.

#6. Nice accessories, a decent Dock and small remote come with this, keep the doc by your computer and / or your TV for easy hookups, just drop in the camera and press the button. it also comes with a soft case. No HDMI cable though, they do have an HDMI output on the dock.

To me this camera is everything I need to shoot great video of my kids and share with my family. Its small, its HD, its easy to edit on my Mac, its got a few `pro' features and its reasonably priced. If you have these requirements this camera is perfect.

I bought this camera as I had fallen in love with the form factor and the fact that it records on SD cards.

I am a professional camera and Steadicam operator for a prime time network TV series. I was expecting a camera that had good quality, but did not have higher expectations, knowing that it is a sub 1000 dollars camera.
It did surprise me on how well it was built, how the menus were easy, yet highly customizable.
I loved the feel in my hands, the dock, pretty much all about it, including the good (but not fantastic) picture quality, except the image stabilization.
That unfortunately, was unacceptable. I could not get a shot without jerks and shakes that were excessive when played back on my 50" plasma. Maybe if you watch it on a small tv set, it will be OK, but for me it wasn't and I had to return it. I was very sad to do so, as I really liked the Camera, maybe in the future they will figure it out...

I read through all the reviews up here on amazon about the hd1000 before i bought this camera. The extra money was a small concern, but it is the 1080p that sold me.
I do videos occasionally as a hobby to pay for my habit, and I was also a professional sports photographer for several years. I have a Sony HDR-FX1 for when i want really good footage. This camera is for convenience & Travel.

I 'm going on a big trip to the greek isles and the size/features makes this camera seem perfect for the trip. I bought a few extras (Wide angle Lens, Hoya Filter) My goal is to film greece on foot. w/out having to haul a tripod and a camera i'd die if lost/stolen.

Some of the reviews i'd read on the HD1000 had concerned us about size (for my wife's hands) but we found the size to be no problem. We actually were expecting the handle to be longer. It doesn't extend through your palm like a gun grip.
Wasted my day at work doing tests. The picture is wonderful! Sharp, clear, and the color seems spot on. One weird thing is when i place it in the docking station and play it on my HDTV all the settings play fine except the audio falls out of sync on 1080p (my tv's highest is 1080i). This is annoying as i want to shoot in 1080p on my trip.

Test the image stabilization, and this is where I start to have problems. When zoomed out it's fine. When zoomed in the CMOS (wiggle) starts to give me headaches on my 50 inch tv. So i turn the IS off and the slightest camera shake that my hand/arm do is very difficult to keep out of any telephoto shot. I don't have the steadiest hand, but i'm only 30 so not an old man either. Shake isn't too bad on a wide angle shot & when the W/Angle lens is on you'd have to look hard to see it.

This has me a little worried as i will be mostly on foot, wandering down cobble stone streets of greece. I just don't want to come home and not be a fan of watching all the beautiful footage i expect to get.

I find myself really wanting to love this camera. I really do. The editing feature is nice. Love the thumb stick. Stable footage is un matched in its price point. With the form factor, i don't have a hard time tracking someone without staring hard at the screen.. it's more natural.
I'm not thinking of sending the camera back or anything, just disappointed that Sanyo didn't include OPTICAL STABILIZATION! I just know they will release a camera this holiday with one. I might cry if that happens.
I'm hoping i'm just worrying too much and i'll be able to come back up here in 4 weeks and rave, rave, rave!
I hope this is helpful for people who fell in love with this camera online, as i did.

Excellent form factor, very handy to us, very good video quality, shoots well in low-light conditions. Getting to play HD files on the PC is a major pain though if you can't use the accompanying software. You need to "activate" the software but when I went to the Web site, I found that the software has a new version and the activation code didn't work for the new version.

Pros
1. Excellent form factor, very handy to use.
2. Easy to carry, small and light enough to take around.
3. Adequate battery life.
4. Shoots well even in low light, compared with other digital video cameras I have used.

Cons.
1. The supplied software was out of date. When I went to the Web site to activate the product, found that the software has a new release; could not locate new version.
2. Very painful to play HD files if you don't use the accompanying software. Took me a month of research to get to play the files on my PC (Windows).People have had issues play HD files on their computer. Strongly recommend going through forums to see if you're up to the hassle. Based on what I read on various forumns, the issue lies with Sanyo's implementation of the H.264 codec used for the HD videos.

Update on June 8, 2009: I've had this camera for almost a year now and I love it. My laptop has a memory card reader. Transferring videos is a breeze because I don't have to connect cables. Simply take the card out, copy the videos and put it back into the camera.

Here are some updates on how I got round the problems:
1. I don't have any problems if I shoot videos in Blog or TV mode. I have problems only when playing HD videos. I can suggest Zoom Player to play the HD ones.
2. I used DVD Flick ([...]) to convert the HD videos onto a DVD. It's a free tool (runs only on Windows though), simple, stable and easy to use.

The reviewer "A Edwards" really did a great job on the review. When I read it, it swayed me over to make the purchase and I am not sorry.

Now, I'm not the best video shooter on earth but NONE of my shots so far have been shaky at all. Image stabilization is not an issue for me. I am a simpleton though. I do take basic videos of the kids at the park, driving my car (don't ask) and chasing the dog around the house.

The images look great on my 52" Samsung TV and no one gets dizzy or sick. The HD playback is *stunning* and really is the best video recorder I have ever owned. I shot a blair witch simulation and I gotta say that the pores on my face never looked so good. WOW does it get the detail!

Some of you complain that your computer cannot handle playback. I did notice a strange behavior when I used quicktime to playback my videos. It seemed like every 59th frame would skip ahead to frame 65 resulting in a chop every one second. I fixed this by simply playing the videos using a FREE application called VLC. That fixed my problem 100%. Google it and install it. It's a trusted app. No malware, people.

My only issue is disk space. Seems like 1-2 minutes of full on HD@60fps runs about 200Mb. OUCH! The question is: What really IS deserving of recording at full HD? It's really a hard question. I mean, I want EVERYTHING I record to be awesome and HD but lets face it, its not worth the disk space. I lowered the resolution to 720@60fps and the size is much smaller with little sacrafice to quality.

My suggestion is: Shoot the wedding at full rez. Shoot the grand canyon at full rez. Shoot your dog running around at 720! Its up to you but even a 1Tb drive will fill quickly (6 mos or less) if you shoot it all at HD.

Not so long ago, I watched my brother-in-law purchase a Panasonic digital SD camera for more than the XACTI and he is hating life! Why? Because they chose a proprietary format to encode so each time he records, he copies to his computer and must decode each file individually to a format his computer can recognize. The XACTI is the opposite and something that was done right from the start. Record, pull the SD card, insert into computer, copy and watch! It's that simple. No hassles...No strings attached.

If you can afford this gadget, I cannot stress enough how well rounded it is. The only SERIOUS con is that it DOES Look like a gun and casually strolling around town with it will eventually get the attention of the local cops who might front you so be smart and holster this bad boy when in public.

I had been a happy customer of a xacti c40 for more than 2 years, so it was natural for me to look at this camcorder when I looked for a HD/full HD one. The xacti c40 is tiny, stores the data in a SD card, uses MP4 format, supports both video and pictures and it is really easy to use. The new 1010 shares most of the same attributes. Size is not as tiny as the c40 but small enough to manage properly. The quality of the pictures is very good and it also supports the 16:9 format. The video quality is also very good, with several resolutions available and 16:9 format supported. Unfortunately the stabilizer doesn't work at all. I tried hard with several configurations and adjustments but my comclusion is that it simple doesn't work, there is no workaround. Viewing movies in a 42' screen is a headache as images are blurred; maybe you can see them better in a smaller screen but there is no point to have this camera in that case. Sanyo needs to solve it to have a customer ready product. It is a pity and I returned this product and bought the Sony hdr-tg1 instead.

I bought this camera because I wanted to be able to record footage in places that were rugged enough to where I'd be challenged to want to bring any video camera at all. Video cameras are such pains many times, with their size and delicateness. Oftentimes if I am going hiking or camping, I am tempted at every turn to leave a video camera behind. So the Xacti seemed to me to be a great camera in that it could fit in a pants pocket. The portability of this camera is excellent, as well as its sturdiness. The large lens lets in plenty of light. The screen is a standard size but good and bright. The only complaint about this camera is the image stabilizer. An optical stabilizer is so much nicer than an electronic one, but an OIS is a large and bulky assembly. And this camera is so light that using the image stabilizer while hand-holding it is a must. And the image quality suffers some because of CMOS jitter. But even so, I found the image quality to be amazingly sharp and detailed. Video cameras are still all about compromises. You can buy an amazing, 3CCD beauty, but it will be completely impractical to carry such a thing on a hiking trip. Or, with some compromises on image quality, you can have a perfectly portable camera like the Xacti, easily toted almost anywhere you'd want to go. And you'll have an image quality that is, well, good enough, for most any amateur purpose.