Labs

The VL-Z900H has an unusual design for a palmcorder, with a swivel handgrip that's almost as large as the section housing the lens and circuitry. This makes it somewhat bulky, but it's relatively comfortable to use.

Despite the unit on test being the flagship of Sharp's Z series, it's still one of the cheapest camcorders this month. Like JVC's GR-D230, it's based around a 1/4in CCD offering 1.33 megapixels, although Sharp doesn't interpolate this to a higher resolution. Instead, photos

ADVERTISEMENT

are only 1,280 x 960.

Outdoors, colour fidelity and contrast were on a par with other camcorders in its price range. Under artificial lighting, however, the Sharp had problems. Colours were accurate, but focus was blurry and camera moves even left temporary trails. Lower light caused the exposure control to oversaturate bright colours as well.

A reasonable selection of manual features is provided. Both iris and gain controls are available, and shutter speeds can be varied from 1/12 to 1/10,000 of a second. The menu rocker can be used to manually focus. But, you'll need to use the menu system to access any of these features.

Unlike any other budget camcorder this month, the Sharp boasts a top-loading tape mechanism. However, although a headphone socket is integrated, only the powered accessory shoe is available for attaching a microphone, as there's no separate mini-jack.

It's a fair set of manual controls, but the Sharp's performance under artificial light lets it down, particularly as Canon's MV700i offers better overall image quality for £100 less.