Sony HDR-PJ710 Camcorder Review

Canon Vixia HF G10 Comparison

The HC-X900M is a great camcorder, and right now it's not too hard to find it for less than $1000, making it one of the best values on the market today. But the camcorder also represents a disturbing trend for Panasonic: it has little in the way of improvement over last year's HDC-TM900. We found the new X900M had the same performance scores as its predecessor and only a few updated features, which makes us wonder why Panasonic bothered upgrading the line in the first place.

Compared directly to the Sony HDR-PJ710V, the Panasonic has a few clear advantages. It's smaller and more comfortable to carry, it has more manual controls (with a real lens ring!), it has the option of shooting 3D, it has a larger LCD and a viewfinder, and it's cheaper. The Sony's advantages include a sleeker interface, better automatic controls and features, stronger battery life, more connectivity options, and the built-in projector. Both camcorders performed very well in our stabilization test (one of the few areas where Panasonic did update the X900M), and both camcorders produced excellent results in our image tests.

We want to give Sony the edge here solely because the company did more to improve over last year's Handycams, but we wouldn't call it the runaway winner. The Panasonic is the better value at the moment, but if the price starts to drop a bit more on the PJ710V it will be difficult to argue against the Sony. Not to mention the Sony holds a slight edge in our overall performance scores.

/r:render