The VP-D351 is a basic no-frills camcorder of lightweight construction, read 'plasticy'
In it's favour it uses inexpensive mini-DV tapes, which I consider to be preferable to DVD media, but connectivity is limited to Firewire (not all computers support this) and it doesn't come with a remote a remote control. (I tried one from another model and found it doesn't 'see' it)
I have owned a couple of other Samsung camcorders in the past - both bought off ebay as 'spares or repair (note to self - they don't seem especially robust) I was, however, able to get them working after an hour or so effort without buying spares.
Having been reasonably assured by this I bought my latest Samsung camcorder in a similar state - but discovered that the ribbon cable for the display was broken. Whilst I'm pretty handy with a watchmakers screwdriver and feel comfortable taking on this sort of work, I wouldn't generally advice this approach for the inexperienced!
My intention is to attach a camcorder to my motorcycle, I wanted one which was lightweight and reasonably inexpensive (I'd far rather trash a £20 job than a £600 one!)
The camera offers a reasonable range of facilities for an inexpensive model, and is perfectly suited to 'point and shoot' work. The extensive use of plastics makes the model lightweight but this comes at the expense of feeling somewhat 'insubstantial'.
Connectivity is limited to 'DV' (firewire) analogue out and microphone in, although there is no hot shoe to mount a microphone. The battery, although looking similar to other Samsung models is slightly smaller than the ones I already have, so don't go buying this thinking your old accessories are guaranteed to work.
If you want a hassle-free camcorder, you might be best to avoid this model. Even dismantling it proved to be a little more complicated than what I'm accustomed to, and some of the more easily broken parts (including the LCD ribbon cable) require a complete stripdown to replace.
The particular problems I've found are the LCD screen has broken (I don't need this id the camera's mounted somewhere I can't see it) but the auto focus also appears to be playing up. I don't see any way in which I can set this manually!
Still, it seems to work fine as a mini-DV replayer so for the money I mustn't grumble!
Buy if you must, but don't expect it to work forever. You'll find it lacks some of the robustness of more expensive models, and repair will be largely uneconomical unless you have access to a source of spares and are relatively skilled.
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Sep 9th, 2008
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