Sanyo Xacti VPC-C6 camcorder

Posted by T3 Online on Fri 26 Oct 2007

Is this the coolest camcorder ever?

If you're torn between buying a camera or camcorder next, consider this stylish hybrid. The smallest 'corder in its class, it records to an SD card and is available in fiery red, polo-neck black and opulence-suggesting gold.

Barely bigger than a camera phone, it sits comfortably in your hand, letting your thumb leap between the still and movie buttons and the 5x optical zoom.

Open the LCD and it powers up within two seconds, although you have to hang on for another couple of seconds before you can start shooting. The rotating, two-inch LCD performs well in all light conditions, while the menu system is clear, although its attendant joystick is a bit unwieldy.

While you're shooting a movie, you can squeeze off a still at any time, although this causes the screen to go black, and you can't utilise the flash. More problematic still is that when you subsequently play back the footage, it pauses at the point the still was taken, and the shutter click is clearly audible.

The camera only includes a digital image stabiliser instead of the superior optical kind and focusing is sluggish and hard to get right in darker conditions. Video footage isn't bad, although it can overexpose outdoor highlights and the supplied 1GB card only lets you grab 41 minutes of film at the highest quality setting. Similarly, photos are good rather than great, with image noise abundant at higher sensitivity levels.

While the video footage can't really compare to a MiniDV camcorder, or the photos to a high-quality stills camera, few devices can do both as well as this. When you add this model's size and great styling to that versatility, you have something a bit special.