Sanyo Xacti VPC-J4

Posted by T3 Online on Fri 19 Oct 2007

The C1's successor is a convergence cam to kill for

No one could accuse Sanyo of tip-toeing back into digital imaging - last year's innovative Xacti VPC-C1 camera-camcorder (T3 95, 4/5) made more waves than a medium-sized asteroid impact. Its successor, the J4, has ditched the pistol grip and long zoom lens in favour of a stretch-compact design and classy all-metal body. While its styling might not create such a tsunami, this new Sanyo has upgraded to a modern four-megapixel sensor and lost 35g in weight.

But this camera doesn't want just to look good; it wants to be your friend too. Behind the sliding lens door lives a tiny camera nymph, whose only pleasure is to announce in a cheesy American accent what mode the camera is in or that your memory card is full. There's also a choice of Beginner or Expert menus, and (pretty but pretty useless) pop-up help bubbles. Grumpy users can turn these off, and will probably also whinge that the lens door can be nudged closed while shooting, but they should really cheer up a bit.

The J4 is lightning fast to turn on, although its shutter lag when taking pictures is only average. A superb 1.8- inch LCD takes up most of the camera back, displaying sharp, solid graphics even in low light. Although the Expert mode doesn't exactly overwhelm with photo options, you do get basic sensitivity, exposure compensation and a burst mode. There's spot focusing and metering, and a fi ne selection of focus modes, including continuous focusing for shooting in a hurry.

Of course, all camcorders use continuous focusing and the Xacti concept is all about convergence. It captures the same smooth (30 frames per second), TV-sized (640 x 480-pixel) movie clips as the C1, albeit in muffled mono rather than its predecessor's expansive stereo sound. Movies are recorded as MPEG-4s, and look very impressive as long as you're not expecting MiniDV levels of detail. Colours are great, while the focusing and metering work well. You can even optically zoom, but don't get carried away - the highest-quality movies take up around 1MB for each second of footage.

Photos are less revolutionary but are still sharp and natural, especially with the flash. The cam will also capture images at six or eight megapixels, although these are enlarged with interpolation (computerised guesswork) and do little more than clog up the 16MB SD card.

Overall, you couldn't ask for a lighter, better-looking or easier camera to use. The fact that it also shoots great stills and movies means everyone should own one - convergence is here, and we never thought it would look this good.

FEATURES:
4 megapixels. 2.8x optical zoom. 640 x 480-pixel, 30fps movie mode. 16MB SD card. 140- images battery life. Weighs 150g with battery.