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Weighing in at only 410 grams with the battery, this little camcorder records incredible 1920 x 1080 high definition video and takes vivid, clear and crisp 4 meg still images.

The Sony XR100 has an internal memory space of 80 gigs (hard drive, not flash memory). This allows you to store around 32 hours of high definition footage or 65 hours of standard footage. To protect your footage Sony has included HDD Smart Protect which protects the hard drive during accidental dropping or knocking.

SteadyShot Image Stabilization makes sure that your images stay clear and focused even if you don’t have the most steady hand.
The 2.7 inch Clear Photo Plus LCD, with 211,000 pixels, is also a touch panel. The LCD rotates a total of 270 degrees for multiple viewing angles and the touch screen panel allows for very easy access to the most commonly used features and of course allows access to the main menu.

The Sony BIONZ™ image processing engine makes it possible for this camcorder to have features like Face Detect and Smile Shutter. Face Detect will recognise up to eight faces in the window and automatically priorities focus, exposure and colour to enhance natural skin tones. Smile Shutter is an incredible feature that allows the camera to automatically detect when the prioritised face is smiling and either begin recording or snap a photo without you pressing a button. The BIONZ engine also helps to reduce noise and improves the camera’s response time.

The Sony XR100 really impressed me with it’s Dual Record feature. While you are busy recording a video – you can still take a still image without having to stop or pause the video recording!

The Sony XR100 has been given the much praised Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens which delivers incredible colour with perfect recreation of even the most subtle tones, crisp, vivid images with all round excellent quality.

The 1/5” Exmor™ CMOS sensor with ClearVid™ delivers very detailed footage and high quality still images (4 megapixels) and does this with low battery consumption aiding in prolonged battery life.

The zoom functions on the Sony XR100 were really good. The camera is equipped with 10 x optical zoom and 120 x digital zoom and they functioned smoothly and with minimal distortion.

A very simple and quick power up option is to open the LCD screen.

A very smart feature: The Built in Zoom Mic. The microphone zooms in tandem with your camera zoom, so if you focus on person and zoom in on them – the microphone will automatically aim at that person and ‘zoom’ in to pick up their sound/voice more clearly than the noises around them.

Sound is recorded in 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound and of course this gives you a great experience when watching your videos at home, it’s almost the same experience as it was recording them.

I spent quite some time playing with the Smooth Slow Record feature which functioned incredibly well. When the camera is set to Smooth Slow Record, instead of recording at 60 frames per second, the camera records at 240 frames per second! This means that you can take 6 seconds of footage and play it back in 24 seconds; watching in great detail the action that you have just recorded.

The camera is powered by a InfoLITHIUM® with AccuPower™ Meter System (NP-FH60) and power consumption is at 3.9 watts.

XV Colour Technology blows the standard RGB colour range out of the water by capturing almost twice as many colours. This is clearly visable when you plug your camcorder into a larger output like your TV and watch your footage on big screen.

All round a very impressive little camera, great for taking on holiday, to document your family growing up, or your exciting camping adventure. The Sony XR100 is easy to use and has great features.