Customer Reviews
Decent Little Camera With a Few Flaws 
2008-05-02
When searching for a camcorder, I wanted something that met my specific set of expectations: it had to be small enough to carry easily and get out quickly, have decent video and sound quality, and connect easily to iMovie / Final Cut Express on my Mac. This camera met all those expectations for me, but it may not be the right camera for everyone.
Pros:
The size and design of the camera is incredible. It is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and compact enough to fit into your pocket. It feels well built and doesn't have much chassis flex when squeezed. All the buttons are easily accessible to your fingers, and the LCD is large and clearly viewable. The HD700 also connects easily to your computer, popping up on your desktop as an external hard drive you can drag the media off of. For you Mac users, it works seamlessly with iMovie '08 and Final Cut Express.
Cons:
Don't expect perfect video quality with this camera. Bright environments look great, but don't even attempt shooting in low-light situations. Indoor filming was rather dark and grainy. Also, this camera is designed to be held expressly by right-handed people, so lefties like me will have to quickly get used to either operating the camera in their right hand or awkwardly holding it in their left.
Overall, this is a great little camera, but it is definitely designed for the specific individual who is always on go, where form matters a little more than function. I'm a college student who is always running from one place to another, and I absolutely love the fact that I can slip this out of my pocket at a moments notice. If you're looking for a camera that shoots professional quality high-def, this camera is definitely not for you; but if you are someone who values capturing the moment as it happens, regardless of imperfect recording quality, I strongly recommend this camera.
Great video, very poor stills picture quality.. 
2008-04-19
I heard many good things about this camcorder.
Video is just great on it no doubt about that, but stills pictures - even though it's a 7MP camera, the stills pictures come out blurry and with snow spots, it takes nice pictures in outdoor, but not what I would expect from a 7MP ($480) camera.
Happy Overall 2008-04-05
This camera is pretty much what I was looking for. It doesn't do very well in low light conditions but good enough for I use it for. The field of view is pretty short like some of the other reviews state. I bought a magnetic mount wide angle lens from Amazon also (Phoenix M-Power small 0.45x magnetic wide angle lens). This is the 1st time I have used anything with MPEG4 video. Not many players for this format. I did find a video converter that converts to all other formats. If your just wanting to watch your videos on your TV the Xacti HD700 easily hooks up to your TV and comes with a remote to make it easy to use.
1 to 10, I rate this about a 7.
don't get this for indoor shooting 
2008-03-31
I love this camera with one exception. It has a very narrow field of view.
When trying to record a young child indoors, you need to be far away from the subject if you want to get everything in the frame. If I knew it was going to be as bad as it is, I would not have purchased this.
It does not do so well in low light either.
I am still giving this a 3 because other than that, it feels great in my hand, and I have fairly large hands. It is also very easy to use. I like the fact that I can just run it on and hand it to my wife and she can at least figure out the basic functions (record, photo and zoom) without a problem.
I love carrying it around in my pocket, it is so small, you forget you have it sometimes. It's a great camera if you are the kind of person that never knows when you might need to record something when you are out-and-about. Sure there are camera phones that shoot video, but not in HD!
OK...can't wait for the 1080p model 2008-03-22
This camera records in 720p mode. Combine it with a 720p HDTV plasma, LCD or CRT, and you got a nice little camera for on the go people. Four major problems. (1)The optical lens needs more zoom range. (2)Low light environments produce grainy picture in auto mode, if you add very bright lights and manual adjust ISO to 100 or 50, indoor VDO achieves very clear HD quality!. (3) Need a Blu-Ray DVD recorder; a very large hard drive or buy a new SD card for each VDO project you shot to store your HD VDO. I'm using a progressive scan recorder DVD disc player to store my VDO but I'm losing some of the sharp 720p HD VDO doing it this way. I'll have to wait for a Blu-ray recorder/player or for 2GB SD prices to fall below $10 per Card for HD storing. I may start storing my HD VDO on my external hard drive but i can't figure out how to view my HD VDO on my HDTV's. It's so much easier to view my VDO on my HDTV's on DVD disc or SD cards. Problem #(4)The image stabalizer needs to be more powerful. Shake is very noticable if you're not very still or don't use a tripod.
In summary I would purchase this camera again. Just hope the HD DVD disc and SD card manufactures start making cheaper products. A 2GB SD card holds about 28 minutes of 720p HD VDO and cost about $20. I also like the still picture feature. The only problem is that 5 mega pixel pictures are the only 16:9 (HDTV screen) with this aspect ratio. 7 and 10 mega pixel pictures don't fit the entire HDTV screen but are very good for printing.
You can edit your HD VDO right on the camera without the use of a computer. You have to leave enough space on the 2GB SD card to do this. About 20-15 minutes of record time will leave you just enough room to edit on the camera. Then just place your camera in the dock and hook-up the wires to your Blu-ray player/recorder for HD storing or progressive scan DVD/recorder for standard quailty. I would prefer to keep my edited VDO on a SD card, but this can become very expensive over time having to buy a new SD card for each VDO project.
Also one more major problem. I once owned a standard JVC camcorder that recorded without breaks. The VDO was one continueous clip. I hate that Sanyo records in clips and then you have to join these clips together. It would be better to have one continuous clip. The cut feature in the edit mode is great! By joining these clips together you waste space on your SD card and takes time. I could record 15 minutes more if I could record without clips for each time I press start. I would use the cut feature to edit. Bad design!
Gain great portability at the expense of some quality. 2008-05-27
I recently purchased this camera to use for recording all those family moments. I was previously using a Panasonic PV-GS250, a hand-held 3CCD Mini-DV camcorder. I was drawn to this model for several reasons: True 720p video quality, pocketable portability, digital media (no more "real-time" importing and no more buying tapes).
The camcorder does a pretty good job at delivering decent quality video, however, out of the box I didn't find the Full Auto settings really that appealing, especially in lower light (indoor) conditions. I spent several hours manually going through the settings and replaying them on my television in order to find a better solution. I was able to find the settings that looked good to me. Outdoor shots in lots of light look great at 720p resolution. The colors I've recorded look vibrant in these settings.
In low light, the quality doesn't match my Panasonic camcorder (which is a 3CCD camera, and should be better in low light), but the Sanyo does a decent job at my manual settings. Out of the box, I took the camera to my son's birthday party at a roller skating rink, where the lighting was somewhat dim. With Full Auto settings, the results were disappointing. With my manual settings, the results were improved and acceptable to me.
The image stabilization feature of the camera leaves a lot to be desired when compared to my Panasonic camera. The electronic image stabilization on the Sanyo still results in very jerky playback. In fact, while there was a noticable difference between image stabilization on and off, it still looked too jerky with the feature on. One side effect of turning on image stabilization on this camera is that the picture "zooms in". When the feature is turned off, it zooms back out. This has lead to a number of complaints by owners of this camera-- it's hard to get everything in frame in a room because of the zoom in. Unfortunately, this is how the feature works-- it must have a "buffer" around the frame in order for the digitial image stabilization to work and this is why it zooms in. TIP: *** If you need to get more people in frame and you have no room to back up, then turn off image stabilization.***
Overall, I am happy with this purchase. It doesn't output the best video in all conditions, especially compared to my other camera. However, it can put out some great video given the time to get the settings tweaked to your liking. I would suggest using a tripod whenever possible for the best results. If you are like me, and enjoy true portability then hauling around a tripod is not always an option. In that case, make sure to stabilize yourself again something to keep the shaking to a minimum.
For me, it was a trade off between convenience and quality. I am willing to give up some video quality in order to gain:
- more portability (can throw it in my pocket)
- digital media (no more buying mini-dv tapes)
- faster import into computer (copy movie files over instead of importing in real-time)
- convenient backup (the dock can have a usb hard drive connected to it, and you can easily back up to the drive)
- 720p output
Very Pleased! 2008-05-24
Its easy...carry the small video camera in your pocket, take cool video whenever you want, in a moments notice it is out of your pocket and recording. When you get home home hook it up to the TV (while its charging) watch what you recorded or hook it up to your PC/Mac and start editing. its 720p so it wont bog down your older computer like the 1080i cameras out now that require the most powerful and fastest computers to even edit. Yes the the 1080i camera's picture looks better but not really by much, it would take a side by side comparison to notice
I just want to say that this is a pretty darn good camera, for everyday use and everyday people.
If you are into professional broadcasting don't get this camera!!!
If you are into crisp home movies, editing them on the computer and burning them to dvd (and a mac owner) get this camera!
It cannot be beat as far as size, convenience and price. I am glad I disregarded the negative reviews!
P.S. In case its needed-----Google "MPEG Streamclip" it is a free program for mac users (PC? not sure) that makes the files leaner for playback, editing, etc.
Great product for the price, but missing a few things 2008-05-24
This camera has been great because of being able to take decent videos as well as mediocre still photos. It is compact and easy to tote around in you pocket.
The zoom on it however is horrible. When I want to take a video of something far away it will be blurry. Also you can not zoom in very much. That is certainly a pain. Also the still camera's photos are not that great. With limited flash options you need to have good lighting to take full advantage of the still camera.
I love this camera! 2008-05-21
I have had this camera for about a month now and I love it. After purchasing several digital still cameras and video cameras through the years, I've sort of geared myself to lower my expectations regarding the image/video quality. I have to say, this was the first time a camera has impressed me with its quality. The colors are vivid, the microphone is great. This camera exceeded my expectations.
I also uploaded some video to a social networking site to see if their web-based encoder would diminish the quality and found that the quality was far superior to any other video I have uploaded. In fact, my friends noticed the improvement in quality and commented me asking if I had purchased a new video camera.
This is a great camera - especially for the price!
Great little camera 2008-05-03
The reviews here are surprisingly negative, but after quite a bit of searching and comparing, I decided to go for this one anyway. I don't regret it.
The only major negative is really the "perma-zoom" aspect that other reviewers have mentioned, but it's really not that bad. There's a very helpful review here that has measurements for the field of view--about 68"x120" at a distance of 152". If you're worried about it, mock it up yourself with some bits of masking tape, and decide if it's a deal-breaker. If not, I think this camera is a great choice.
The real killer feature, for me, is the "Xacti Library." Video files can be huge, and the Xacti library lets you hook a USB hard drive to the dock and transfer files without using a computer. I keep the dock hooked up to my television, and it's fantastic to be able to quickly review and archive footage. The camera lives in the dock, and so it's always charged and ready to go, too. It's not as seamless and easy as an iPod, but it's pretty good.
