I purchased this camcorder for my first holiday to Orlando the day before my flight so I did not have a great deal of time to get used to it but I found all the standard controls to be comfortably situated.Battery performance from the standard battery was good, It lasted around three quarters of the day but I would recommend investing in the higher capacity battery.
The camera has a top control panel in the handle that has the record stop/start button duplicated which is very handy when using the secondary screen on the side for taking hip shots.
The camera comes with a remote control that duplicates nearly all the controls that are available on the camera itself that is good if you want to mount the camera on a tripod.
The optical image stabiliser is very good for long telephoto shots picture shake is kept to a minimum, whilst talking about optical quality when videos are replayed though a TV with S video input you would be hard pressed to differentiate from broadcast programs.
I found sound quality to be excellent when plugged in to my home HI FI system.
What is very nice about this camera that all the menus are easily accessed from a thumb wheel that also double’s like a mouse button to scroll and select functions.
Build quality is very good it has a very solid feel about it whilst not being over heavy I was able to carry it around all day long with no problems.
Overall I am very happy with this bit of kit.
