I am trying to decide between these two camcorders and want to know if you guys feel that the 85 is worth the extra money you pay for over the 80?

Just get the GS85 since its only a little more and has some useful features.

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Proud owner of the world's only GS80 with a mic port!

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The Panasonic PV-GS80 and PV-GS85 share the same manual. You can download it for free from here: http://service.us.panasonic.com/OPE...F/PVGS85-MU.PDF it is 84 pages, about 4.1 MB and worth reading.

The only differences I see in the two models is that they are the same except the GS85 has an SD card for still images, A USB 1.1 connector for webcam use and transfering stills from the SD card, self-timer recording to record still pictures on a card using the timer which appears to default to 10 seconds delay, and a built in LED video light. The LED light is only good for about 5 feet. You can get extra lights to use if you really need it.


It looks like the best still images from the SD card are still only 640 x 480 which you can get the same just doing a "frame grab" while the video is on a computer.

I would not expect to see any differences in the video or audio quality between either model. The approximately $50 extra for the above features would just be a matter of personal choice.



Rich

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