Panasonic SDR-S7

Small and compact, inexpensive

Image quality is very very poor. It dosen't come close to our 10 year old HI 8 sony camcorder. A camcorder has to shoot good quality images before anything else so all the hype about SD card technology, size etc is a white elephant.

Ultra-light weight, small size, good image quality (Much better than the Samsung SD card Cam I tried).

Sub 50min recording time from the battery, but this does pretty much match the recording time on my 4gb SDHC card. One the battery runs out my card is full too.

useful given the light weight

Not the greatest image sharpness or battery

Can easily slip in pocket; no fuss to carry around and use. Simple menu system, clearly laid out and ideal for users who don't want dozens of options which they'd never use.

The trigger is not ideally placed. The camera won't record without the screen extended (so not possible to film discreetly) Battery life poor compared to larger models .

ease of use battery life

poor picture quality

Very small. No discs or CDs to store. One large memory card (16GB) Holds Hours of recordings.

So small: where has it got to?

Really small size. Easy to work and an 8gb card gives tonnes of room if, like me, you're only making 2min clips at a time.

The files are saved as .mod on the sd card. Would've been better if they were a file that was instantly recognised by media players (though they work fine once associated).

I'm not the most patient person with instruction manuals, but this camera was a cinch to get up and running. It's tiny, it's light and it works fine for everyday kind of videoing.

The image quality isn't bad, and for the size and price it probably deserves a higher rating than I've given it, but like for like it can't really compete with more expensive models with better lenses. I'm undecided as to whether I think the manual lens cover is a minus point, but I guess it was done that way to help keep the prices down.

Very light and easy to use

Uncertain how waterproof it might be (used in field work)

Size and weight brilliant. photo quality not that good but fine for what we want and good value for money.

None does what it said it would

Easy to use, light weight and fits easily in the palm of your hand.

Battery life could be improved.

very compact and easy to use

auto exposure sometimes a bit dark. I would have preferred a bigger battery (it's tiny) at the expense of a bit more size and weight

The size - fits easily into my trousers

Battery life could be better, but that would probally add to the weight and size

Small size Low weight Easy to use

Complicated process to make DVD

size weight fits in a pocket easy

no view finder can be a bit awkward in bright light

Better than my old Hi8 camera, for outdoors.

Indoor areas need to be well lit.

lightweight and easy to use - pick up and go.

no SD included and no idication that one would not be included so couldn't use one until we got one

first camcorder and extremely easy to use. Very compact and light. Ideal for home use and catching special moments quickly when out-and-about.

not too good at capturing images in slight shadow

Brilliant image quality, small and light - pick up and go!

Cant think of any - if youre after lots of features maybe not for you

Very easy to use, so easy. Very light and compact.

Love the size. Lightweight, simple to use. Ideal first camcorder.

Looks a bit plastic-ky. Think a case (even a basic one) should be included as standard.

Small and easy to use, editing software is great and simple.

amazingly small and easy to use

The size of it is amazing! It is absolutely tiny!

Doesn't take good quality images or footage in poor light.

Easy to use, small and compact.

Battery could be longer, it powers off within a minuet of the low battery warning.

Size, Weight, SD card format

Image quality, awkward to use

Very small fits in pocket easily

Easy too use

Night time picture quality could be better

Very small, very light, easy to use!

Small, compact and light. Very good moving image and sound quality. Easy to operate. Good functionality. Supports SDHC memory cards.

Relatively disappointing still image quality.

Small and compact and light

no bad points

compactness

none so far

very compact, easy to use SD card, easy to use video, easy to carry in a pocket, good quality pictures for price and size.

none found.

I wanted an alternative video source to my Casio Exilim Ex-Z1200 still camera which produced quite good quality H.264 video but maximum of 10 minute continuous clips. The Panasonic video was not quite as good as the Casio but was still quite acceptable. The Panasonic is easy to use and pocketable with a decent viewfinder screen a 10 x optical zoom and a few useful colour balance and exposure manual options in the menus. I quite liked it but, alas, it was stolen a week after I bought it and I decided to replace it with a more expensive high definition AVCHD camera. If you are happy with standard definition the Panasonic SDRS7EB-K is amazingly small and quite good value for what it does.

The .MOD "DV Quality" files produced by the Panasonic were twice the size of the Casio H.264 files for the same clip length and the video quality was not quite as good. Before importing the .MOD files into Sony Vegas Pro 8 edit suite I had to rename the .MOD files with a .MPEG extension and Vegas then recognised the files and worked fine with them.

Cheap, light and compact, can support high capacity memory cards.

Poor battery life, shutter doesn't open and close automatically, doesn't save files as .mpg.