Review: Sony HDR-SR10 4MP 40GB, Nice Camera, but I want more

Overall Rating44444

Nice Camera, but I want more

I bought this camera from Circuit City on the day I was to fly out on a 2 week vacation. I have a Sony HI8, but I wanted a better quality camera to archive my children’s activities.

Overall, the camcorder is light, highly functional, and meets my expectations. However, I will probably return the camera. I’ll go through my pros and cons:

Pros:

Lightweight
5.1 sound is great
still pictures are nice, but don’t use the zoom. Zoom stills are grainy
touchscreen lcd is nice and intuitive.
Quick power on is a nice feature.

Cons:
The required codec to play the files are tough to comeby. I found that Cyberlink’s PowerDVD Deluxe is the only 3rd party application to play these files.
The included software is very basic and proprietary. It doesn’t share the codec with media player.
The 40gig harddrive is not sufficient for the HD recordings set at the highest resolution. Why would you get an HD camera and record at low res?
I used my laptop to download. Later, I found trying to play those downloaded files to be a pain.
Focus in low light conditions is poor. I found myself zooming in and out to try and get the auto focus to work properly. Looks like the SR11 has a manual focus knob.
The videos, although much better than SD, are not sharp and realistic like HD TV. The colors are dull and the details are not eyepopping.
Battery life: I bought the 5 hour battery and I got 1:30 life day after day.
No neck strap, but big deal.
The menus were not intuitive. Too many choices and screens.

All in all, for a $1000 investment, I didn’t feel I got the best value. I am not looking at a Cannon HG10, but I wonder how the still pictures are?

Update (9/9/2010): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen. I also found some auctions for this item here.

The featured review for this product, Sony HDR-SR10 4MP 40GB High Definition Hard Drive Handycam Camcorder with 15x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Electronics, was written by J. Kwak.

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Reviews (2)

J. Kwak

February 4th, 2010 at 6:19 pm    


Overall Rating33333

Nice Camera, but I want more
Rated 3 stars.


Stephen Bell

March 1st, 2010 at 1:45 pm    


Overall Rating55555

Great for the money
I bought this camera with a little hesitation because of some of the so-so reviews, but was more than happy with the purchase. The videos look amazing. Using the HDMI cable to hook up to LCD TV makes it completly worth the money. Bought this to record my wedding and am fully satisfied. The only con is the AVCHD format is not widely supported yet. My laptop won’t play the files without jumping like crazy, but you can still burn the movies directly onto a DVD and play them in Blu-Ray Players like the PS3 and loose no quality. I would not let a new technology hold you back unless you plan on keeping your older computer for an extended period of time. (Then you should prob look into VHS)

Great Camcorder


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