Labs

The DCR-DVD505E's girth is due in part to its huge 3.5in widescreen LCD. This extra size makes a real difference. It has almost twice as many pixels as most camcorder screens, letting you see what you're shooting far more clearly and in much greater detail. The extra size makes the touch-screen menu system easier to navigate, too. There's also a viewfinder, which tilts up from the body for easy access.

A big lens dominates the front of the camcorder. It has an automatic lens cover and a built-in flash but no video lamp - if you want to film in the dark, you'll need to use the monochrome Nightshot

PERFORMANCE

The DCR-DVD505E's widescreen mode captures an impressively wide angle. Outdoors the CMOS chip performed well, but couldn't match the other Sony cameras that use CCD sensors. Detail wasn't as sharp and we noticed a little more noise in the video we recorded.

Indoors it produced bright colours, but the edges of objects were crisper on video shot by Canon's DC19. Its results in low light looked better than those from the DC19, with only slight noise and good detail in even the darkest areas. Sadly, our footage was marred by mild compression artefacts, even at the highest settings, and especially in low light and action shots. Our still photos looked good, though, and will suffice for small prints.

VERDICT

The DCR-DVD505E's big LCD is attractive, but the price simply isn't justified by its video quality. The DC19 is a better DVD camcorder, and Sony's own DCR-HC96E is better still.