Product Reviews

The basic design of the Canon can't be faulted. Once the hand strap is properly adjusted it fits snugly into the palm of your hand. The LCD display on the left-hand side measures 2.4 inches, has good viewing angles and is bright and clear. The dark grey plastic body of the camera feels sturdy and looks quite stylish as well.

The basic controls come easily to hand, and the 14x optical zoom is simple to control smoothly. There's a switch on the side that puts the camcorder in easy mode. This automates everything for the novice user and in testing it gave good results. You can take some control over the camera with nine other preset modes like

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low light.

Image quality is above average compared with most budget camcorders, this is due to the 1.3-megapixel CCD. Given enough light out of doors the results are good, with well-defined edges, little noise in the image and colours looking true to life. However, low light conditions result in more noise and poor colour replication. We found that focusing was a little slower than we'd have liked, and this was especially noticeable when zooming in. There's no built-in widescreen mode, but a screw-on adaptor is provided for a more cinematic feel.

It can take still pictures, and has an SD card slot for storage, but the 1.3 megapixel resolution is poor when compared to today's digital still cameras. There are FireWire and USB 2 interfaces, so you can transfer video to your PC for editing and burning to DVD. Disappointingly, there's no S-Video output, only composite. This means lower quality playback when connected directly to a TV.

The MV880X is a decent budget camcorder. Hard disk camcorders are available from JVC, but the prices are a significant step up from MiniDV models, like this one, for similar image quality. If you want a good quality digital camcorder that won't break the bank then this is a good buy.