Panasonic HDC-SD20

The Panasonic HDC-SD20

This is a great compact high definition camcorder for the price. The small design allows for easy travel, it can fit in your purse, a large pocket and doesn't take up much room in your luggage when going on vacation. Very light weight only 270g, made of plastic, in my opinion it looks a little cheep.
However here are some great details: Full HD 1080 resolution (1920 x 1080) Has a HDMI input that allows you to connect to your HDTV so you can view your footage. You can also use the USB cable to transfer your video to your computer. This model has a 16X ( optical) zoom lens and a 40x - 1000x (digital zoom) along with Optical (lens based) Image Stabilization, great for filming objects from a distance.
The LCD screen s 2.7" and is touch screen. Once I started playing around with features and got use to the layout then making selections were easy. There are many different features including face detection, shutter speed, red eye reduction, and there are also 9 scene selections.
One great feature that I really like is the Intelligent Auto (iA) technology. This setting allows the camcorder to automatically judge the scene or image you are recording , and then choose the best possible setting, so you get the best picture without fiddling with it yourself. I usually keep mine on this setting.
One thing I didn't like was the location of the microphone, wasn't placed well, sometimes I found stray fingers covering, or blocking it, especially if you wanted to hold it with both hands. The battery life is ok last less then 10 hours, but over all this is a great little HD camcorder, for less then $600.00.