Product Reviews

The MV930 is Canon's latest budget digital video camera, and it's well specified for a device at this end of the market: stereo sound recording and a 2.7in LCD screen for recording and reviewing footage complement an impressive 25x optical zoom. This DV camera captures in 16:9 widescreen by cropping a 4:3 CCD chip, which also enables it to capture in the square format.

It can also capture still images to an SD memory card, although you'll have to buy one, as Canon doesn't supply it in the box. You can also capture video footage to the SD card as well as a mini DV tape.

The palm-sized recorder fits neatly in the hand, and the zoom and record buttons are set in just the right place for easy use. One particularly nice touch is the internal lens cap, which means there's no annoying plastic disc hanging down.

However, the MV930 loses points for its viewfinder: not only is it miniscule, but you can't move the eyepiece, which makes it uncomfortable to use for longer than a couple of minutes. Luckily, the fold-out 2.7in screen is crystal clear, so it's not all bad news on the recording front. The screen is really impressive for a budget camcorder. It's sharp, the colours are accurate and the widescreen aspect is a great size, although

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it takes a little time to adjust to it.

The zoom mechanism is fluid and, although you need a steady hand at the 25x setting, it's impressive that this magnification is achieved optically rather than digitally.

You operate menus via a joystick and three buttons along the bottom of the LCD screen. Navigation is simple and the options are clear and useful. There are nine different recording options to optimise settings for different situations. However, there are only three white balance settings: auto, daylight and tungsten. You can set your own, but we'd have preferred to see more automatic options. The MV930 doesn't suffer from a glut of unneeded features, though, which means there's less dross to scroll through to get to the option you want.

Image quality is good, with little degradation even in difficult lighting conditions. By contrast, as with many palm-sized camcorders, sound quality suffers from the constant background noise of the tape mechanism, especially in quiet conditions. As the MV930 lacks a shoe or input for attaching an external mic, there's no way round this. Still images captured to the SD card are fairly drab, at 640 x 480 pixels.

The MV930 integrates seamlessly with iMovie but, as you'd expect for a device at this price, it doesn't come with a cable, so remember to pick one up if you want to import your digital video to your Mac.

The lack of an external mic option is disappointing and a few more white balance settings wouldn't have gone amiss. Overall, though, the MV930 is a good-value DV camera, and is made all the more impressive by its large LCD and good-quality images. If you're after a widescreen-capable and cheap DV camera, the Canon MV930 should be on your list of possibilities. And as you can pick one up for about £230 online, it's a great budget option, too.