Sony HDR-UX20 First Impressions Camcorder Reviewby Alfredo PadillaPublished on Jan 10, 2008 3:35 PM 
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Ease of Use
Sony's Easy buttons makes its camcorders some of the easiest to use on the market. Simply press this button and all of your controls go into automatic. Menu buttons double in size to make them easier to press. If you stick with the Easy mode you'll be gold. For those who like to make their own adjustments, though, the Sony HDR-UX20 (Review, Specs, Recent News, ) takes some significant steps back. With the Cam Control gone you will need to make almost all adjustments via the LCD touch screen. Unfortunately the touch screen has been reduced in size from a very comfortable 3.5-inches on the Sony HDR-UX7 (Review, Specs, $0.00) to a much smaller 2.7-inches. This means tapping on screen buttons becomes that much harder and you'll inevitably leave smudges that will obscure a significant portion of the screen.
Handling
The Sony HDR-UX20 weighs in at 560 grams and measures 58 x 93 x 134 millimeters in size. This is significantly lighter than last year’s Sony HDR-UX7, which weighed in at 650 grams. You’ll also notice a much slimmer profile at 58mm versus the HDR-UX7’s 82mm width. These combine to make the Sony HDR-UX20 feel very comfortable in the hand. Like all DVD camcorders the taller profile gives you a lot of vertical real estate to hold onto, meaning it won’t flip or flop like we see from HDD camcorders like the Sony HDR-SR12 (Review, Specs, $0.00).
One handling issue is the loss of the Cam Control. This means that you will have to use the LCD touch screen to make any manual adjustments. Throw in the fact that the LCD size has shrunk to 2.7-inches and the inevitable smudges that you get on the screen and it’s just not as good. It’s also not as fast as making adjustments with the Cam Control. As DVD camcorders are consumer focused this may be less of an issue as most people will probably throw it in Easy mode and forget about any manual adjustments, but the Prosumer crowd who like to have more control will find this frustrating.
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The 2.7-inch LCD |
The viewfinder telescopes out, |
LCD/Viewfinder
The Sony HDR-UX20 takes a significant step back over last year's Sony HDR-UX7 when it comes to the LCD display. The biggest difference is that the Sony HDR-UX20 loses significant screen real estate by going to a 2.7-inch LCD display with 211,000 pixels compared to the UX7's 3.5-inch display with the same 211,000 pixels. We like the improved pixel density, but wish it didn't come at the expense of screen size. We would have preferred that the Sony HDR-UX20 had shipped with the very nice 3.2-inch LCD display found on the Sony HDR-SR12. The Sony HDR-UX20 does come with a viewfinder in addition to the LCD display, which is nice as several camcorder lineups have gotten rid of the viewfinder entirely. It tilts up for easier viewing, but doesn't telescope out.