Others say...

"soft controls, yuck"
most of the playback and adjustment controls are soft touch via the flip out panel. that is very awkward and undesirable. it would be fine if that was a backup/parallel method, but forcing these fat fingers of mine to try and hit the little pixels, and driving down through all those levels of controls makes me crazy. i will be paying for the cheap price of this half baked item for many frustrating months to come, until i can justify getting a more well designed product.

"Precious Moments"
I purchased the DCR-HC28 MinDV Handycam Camcorder so that my Daughter and Grand Daughter could record My Great Grand Daughter, a very active 3 yr old, as she grows up. We are all well pleased with the Camera. It takes wonderful pictures and is very easy to use. With supplied cables, it's very easy to hook up to your TV or Computer. I highly recommend this Camcorder.


"Perfectly fine for its class"
I was looking for a low-cost but still usable camcorder and I picked this up at a local retailer. It wasn't my first choice, but needed to pick one up in a rush I didn't feel like waiting for an order to come in.

I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with it. Vid quality in lower light conditions is a little more on the grainy side (hence the 4 stars instead of 5), but as long as I remember that this is a "budget" model, then it works just fine. Downloading to my PC is a piece of cake using a 4 to 6 pin firewire cable, and the nightshot works a lot better than I would have expected.

If you're expecting professional cinema quality and features - spend the extra money... It's an entry level unit and you get what you pay for.

Overall - if you're looking for something that you can use easily from time to time when the situation arises then this is among the best choices in it's class.



"Major trouble with tape release mechanism!!"
We bought this camera and just after the warranty expired (a year later) the tape mechanism wouldn't pop the tape out. After THREE trips to the repair shop and damaged tapes, we thought we finally got it fixed. For about a month (and we use it about 30 min a week) it was great, now we are getting an error as we are taping that we need to re-insert tape!!! We've had enough and are looking to buy a replacement. For the first year, before the trouble, it was a good camera but certainly not worth all of the latest trouble. We buy Sony electronics all the time and this is our first dud.

"For the price, it's hard to beat"
We needed a camera for video commercials we are making for our websites, and looked long and hard and tried a handful of manufacturers. Ultimately, this little jewel has been an awesome camera for us. It is so easy to use, the picture quality is awesome, and best of all the price is SO right. I just can't imagine having / getting a better picture from any other camera. Sure, maybe you can zoom a bit further with more expensive cameras, but for as inexpensive and solid of a solution as this is, we 100% believe it to be today's sweet spot for mini cassette camcorders. We are however having to now buy a new Sony HC96 Camera, as we need to use a wireless microphone, and sadly :( this one does not have a port for an external microphone. Some additional cool items that we got with our HC28 that we highly recommend are a Wide Angle Lens, the cost is minimal but the value is huge (you won't be disappointed), then you'll want a long-life battery (currently they sell for around $80), and a larger than normal camera bag (as when you install the lens you'll need a bag to accommodate). If you have plans on using Video Editing software to capture and take control of your camera via Firewire, this is the camcorder to get. This is the whole reason why we bought this camera. Finding a camera that worked well with our Ulead/Corel video editing software was difficult, but after plenty of trial and error, we found this unit to be the charm. If you are looking for a personal use family camera, to shoot video and subsequently share with your friends and family, you may want to consider a DVD Recorder camera. With a DVD camera you record 30minutes to one DVD, then you hit a button to 'finalize' it, then you can take the DVD out of the camera and play it on any home DVD player. It's very simple. However for us, we needed to import our video into editing software via our computer, which was a whole different ball-game. Hope this helped, we sure wished we saw a review like this written before we went down the LONG road of LENGTHY reviews and research :)