Panasonic HDC-SD5

Launch price £800.00

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Stuff says

Panasonic's done it again. The world's smallest Full-HD 3CCD camcorder is also one of the world's best. Modest cutbacks aside, it's a real gem

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Stuff.tv hot buy

The camcorder world is fiercely competitive and Panasonic’s fighting a war on three fronts with the SD5 – size, price and resolution.

To keep up with the Joneses – or, more accurately the Sonys, JVCs and Canons – it's upped the resolution from the SD1's 1440x1080i to 'Full HD' 1920x1080i. It’s also regained its world’s smallest title from Sony’s HDR-CX7 by slimming down 20 per cent and managed it all at a launch price lower than its predecessor.

'May as well just hand out the Hot Buy garland now,' you say, but hold on there a minute mayor – there's been a few cut backs to get here.

The optical zoom is now down to 10x from 12x. It’s also lost its external mic input and headphone output (which rules out any serious semi-pro shooting), still doesn’t have a hot shoe, has swapped its excellent 5.1 surround sound mic for a bog standard stereo version and the impressive 1/4in CCDs have been shrunk to 1/6in chips.

Case for the defence
In its defence there's a nifty new Pre-Rec mode which keeps a permanent three seconds in cache so you capture the action that just went when you hit record.  A Disc Copy button instantly archives footage to the optional VW-BN1 external DVD burner and the already rock steady optical image stabilisation (OIS) has been improved.