The Canon MV650i is a superb digital camcorder with 800 K pixel CCD and 22x optical zoom lens. This digital dream is compact, extremely comfortable to hold, with a well-thought-out layout of controls, including customisable illuminated buttons. It looks the part too, but still has some serious technical wizardry in its guts.

The 1/6" 800 K pixel CCD facilitates high-quality digital movie footage, plus XGA resolution stills, the latter of which can be stored on SD flash memory (8 MB card supplied). The camcorder also features a high-performance two-sided aspheric Canon lens with optical 22x/digital 440x zoom and a 0.6x wide-angle lens attachment.

This model has both DV In and Out (FireWire) sockets, making it an ideal camcorder for those wanting to edit their footage on a home computer. There is also an analogue-digital converter and analogue line-in--great if you want to transfer old VHS cassettes to digital tape. The camera's Multi Architecture Camera System helps to optimise the best-quality image settings for movies and stills, depending on whether displayed on TV, PC or printed via the Direct Print function. Additional features include a super night mode, programmed auto exposure, progressive photo shooting, advanced in-camera editing and much more.

The Canon MV650i comes supplied with a remote control, 2x AA batteries, lens cap and lens-cap cord, shoulder strap, Lithium button battery, BP-512 battery pack, CA-570 compact power adapter, WA-30.5 wide attachment, STV-250N Stereo video cable, PC-A10 SCART adapter, IFC-300PCU USB cable, SDC-8M SD Memory card, DV Network solution software disc and Digital Video solution software disc.