Customer Reviews
Just Awful 
2008-04-28
I was looking for a SD card based camcorder that I could put in my pocket, and this looked like a great choice. I had been using the movie unction on my Canon SD750, but it had no optical zoom, and it hunted for focus in low light.
I tested this Panasonic on the highest setting (XP) and I used a Mac to edit the video. To put it simply, the video is horrible. The images are soft and fuzzy, and not as good as my Canon "photo" camera that also captures video. I am not a video snob, and decent image quality would have been OK for me, but this is just plain bad.
The camera however, does have a fast start up, and the battery appears to last for a decent amount of time. Unfortunately, my camera will not last as long, as it is being returned immediately.
Disappointing Video Quality 2008-06-09
I recently purchased this product from best buy (yesterday) and will be returning it today. The picture quality is just too bad to justify the $300 dollar price tag. It does have positive attributes such as size, portability and ease of use. The problem is my digital camera (still) takes the same if not better quality video as the SDR-S7. It's too bad because the positives would have made this a great camera if not for the YouTube like video quality.
Perfect camcorder for the price 
2008-05-28
I was looking for a camcorder to capture memories of our kids. I'm pretty cheap and not a video snob. That being said, I wanted a camcorder that wouldn't break the bank and one that I wouldn't be afraid to take out of the house. I purchased it from Best Buy only because I needed it right away, it was on sale for the same price as here. I brought the camcorder home and charged the battery and started shooting. Played it back on 42' DLP HD TV and the picture quality, while certainly not HD, was just a good if not slightly better than our old Sony HI8 camcorder, and this was SP video setting (medium). I tried some recording using XP setting (highest quality) and didn't notice enough of a difference to sacrifice half of the recording time. Dark settings do not record well, I think there is a night setting but haven't explored that yet. The 40 minute life of the battery isn't anything for Panosonic to brag about but for my needs, multiple 1 to 2 minute clips and occasional longer ones, its longer than you think. I found many websites that sell the battery for as little as $11.00 and ac/dc chargers for $20.00, a very affordable solution in my opinion. Now the ultimate test, will it work with my macbook? Yes. Sold. I just pluged it in and iphoto grabbed the still pics and imovie grabbed the vids. I have a new macbook w/ intel processor and iMovie '08, I understand older versions will not work. To sum it up, Affordable price, good video quality, compact and lightweight, and not afraid to take it anywhere. It is just what I was looking for.
Just what I expected 2008-05-15
We're days away from the birth of our first child, and we wanted something to be able to capture some quick video... it's (of course) not an HD camera, but the quality is fine for viewing on the computer screen or a standard def TV. The size is great, the price is right.
As has been said, the battery life is listed at 40 minutes, though I haven't tested that, that's real world use (through starting and stopping, etc.), it should last longer than an hour of continuous shooting. I also bought an off brand replacement battery along with it for $12.
The 3 main requirements I had were small size, low price, and records to flash (Because I knew I'd never use the camera if I had to keep up with tapes, and I didn't trust the performance of DVDs or the longevity of hard drive). If you're willing to accept a slightly lower quality for those things, then this should fit the bill perfectly.
Insert catchy title. 
2008-05-01
I bought this camera as an impulse buy at Best Buy, and I really like it. There are some pros and cons just like anything but so fat the experience is good, and the price was right.
Lets go over the cons first, as for some people the cons will break this camera. First the video quality, no way around it this camera is made for YouTube. You are not going to get great video quality out of this camera, very bad in low light but ok in sunlight. Second the battery life. To be honest it kinda sucks, 40 mins on a charge is a little lower than I wanted considering the size. I want to take this every where and use this all day, but that is not going to happen. The buttons on the camera are also a point of contention, as they have almost no tactile feedback. I would like it if they clicked a little or something, but that is a very small problem.
Now the Pros. The selling point of this camera was the size. It is really small! It fits in my pocket no problem, and I literally take it everywhere. I have even tied it to a kite , and the top of my car just to see if I could, and it was great. Then comes the price, for $299 you can barley beat it, There are some cameras like the Flip but they do not have the flip out LCD (very handy) or replaceable batteries and memory.
Bottom line is this camera is pushed to the YouTube crowd, short videos that you make at parties and stuff like that. Perfect for a Teen with limited cash to spend on their first camera, but wants a little more versatility than the Flip. Or the person like me who has a better camera, but needs something to take everywhere. The sound and video quality are just right for compressing way down and converting to flash, and to be honest if you want to get great video quality spend more money, nothing in this price range is going to be good enough for an HDTV or even many SDTVs.
The battery life issue can also be solved for around 25 bucks by searching the model number(vw-vbj10) of the battery on Google. I have two 3rd party batteries and they work great.
I am happy with my purchase and would recommend it to someone looking for something small and versatile to have fun with.
Battery Life Too Short!!! 2008-04-30
I purchased a new Panasonic SDR-S7K video camera at the Best Buy in Castleton, IN. I performed hours of research before I bought the camera, and felt confident in making a purchase. This is a new model so there wasn't much about it on the Internet outside of the standard promotional material by the manufacturer. I got the camera home and opened the box. Before I used the camera I read through the owner's manual. I learned the battery supplied with the camera only has a recordable life of 40 minutes! That is way too short for my purposes. No problem, I thought, I'll just buy a battery with a longer life. Wrong! There is only one battery that fits that camera and the life is 40 recordable minutes. The batteries are rather expensive too at $60 each. Three days after I bought the camera I went to Best Buy for a refund. They informed me there would be a restocking fee of 15% because I (GASP!) opened the box. The restocking fee was $42. I'm just glad I didn't buy a more expensive camera. Even though I didn't buy the camera from Amazon, I wish I had. Amazon has always treated me well.
