Product Reviews

This compact HD 'palmcorder' from Sanyo resembles a rather menacing ray-gun, so we were a little disappointed to find no trigger-style record button. Still, it's bound to have any gadget fan instantly enamoured, being only 113mm high and weighing just 311g.

A big lens dominates the front of the camcorder, behind which is a 1/2.5in CMOS sensor with four megapixels. The Canon HV20 has a slightly larger CMOS but only 2.96 megapixels. However, the high-resolution sensor is actually a hindrance when it comes to video. Packing so many pixels on to a sensor can provide more detail, but it also increases crosstalk. This is where light falling on one pixel is falsely detected by the pixels around it. This causes errors in the colour data, which becomes noise in the image. This was evident in the resulting video.

We had further problems in low lighting. The automatic setting produced a dark and gloomy image, and the autofocus struggled to bring the image

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into sharp focus. In normal lighting conditions it performed better, though the autofocus was still rather sluggish.

Video is compressed using the H.264 codec at a maximum rate of 12Mbit/s. This is similar to most HD camcorders using DVD, hard disk or memory card storage. The Xacti uses SD cards, and is also compatible with SDHC cards. An 8GB SDHC card costs about £40 including VAT, and will store one hour and 25 minutes of video at top quality settings.

Unlike many HD camcorders, which shoot at 1,440x1,080, the Xacti records 1,920x1,080 pixels. However, we preferred using the 720p setting, as it gave a smoother image when panning. There are more pixels in the 1080i video, but we couldn't see much extra detail, most likely due to the 12Mbit/s limit. At 720p, video quality was the best we've seen from a camcorder this small, though it was a long way off that of the bulkier Canon HV20.

The Xacti is easy to use and solidly made. The main controls are clustered together in a circular arrangement beneath your thumb. The menu is controlled by a small joystick and is clearly laid out on the bright and detailed 2.7in LCD screen. Sanyo has squeezed in an accessory shoe and microphone input, too.

If you want to output video directly from the camcorder, there's a docking station with HDMI/component outputs. It saves you having to plug and unplug cables, and it charges the battery as well.

The Xacti is a desirable, tiny HD camcorder, but video quality isn't up to scratch. At £473, it isn't good value.