Sony HDR-TG5V

Handling (6.00)

Like the Sony HDR-TG1 before it, the HDR-TG5V is definitely an unusual camcorder. Its compact, upright design puts it somewhere in between a Flip camcorder and a traditional mid-range model. It is small enough to fit in your pocket, mainly because of its lack of protrusions and rectangular shape, but it’s also large enough to be a nuisance. This camcorder isn’t like a cellphone or a Blackberry that you can just slip into your pocket and forget about—it weighs a little more than half a pound and is over an inch thick.

While the rectangular design of the HDR-TG5V does make it more portable, it also makes it harder to grip. The camcorder doesn’t have an ergonomic design like the Sanyo VPC-HD2000 and its lens doesn’t hang over the body of the camcorder to give you something to rest your finger on. The TG5V does have a very sturdy body, however, and its titanium-build is both scratch and finger-proof resistant. The glossy new touchscreen LCD, however, collects more fingerprints than a crime scene detective.

Using the HDR-TG5V as a simple point-and-shoot device is quite simple. The camcorder has only two buttons and one zoom ring, and all of them are accessible using your thumb on the back of the device. So, if you just pick up the camcorder and start shooting, it is actually a quite pleasant experience. When you dig deeper, however, the HDR-TG5V begins to reveal itself as an overly-complicated product. The menu is complex and very long (24 separate pages), and the navigation setup is awkward and confusing—mainly because it uses Sony’s finicky touchscreen system.

Sometimes the lack of buttons actually makes the camcorder more difficult to use. For example, there is no power button on the HDR-TG5V. To turn it on and off you simply open or close the LCD panel. The problem is, the camcorder automatically shuts off after a few minutes of inactivity. The only way to get the camcorder to turn back on at this point is to close the LCD and then open it again. This is a minor issue, but it is really quite silly for Sony to eliminate something as simple as a power button.

There are also no dedicated buttons for switching between still mode and video mode. Instead, to move between these modes you must press the start/stop record button or the shutter button halfway down. When we did this, we often found ourselves pushing the buttons a bit too hard, which resulted in either an unwanted photo being captured or video recording beginning by accident. Simply put, this isn’t a good design.

Portability (10.57)

The HDR-TG5V is more portable than last year’s HDR-TG1, if only because the TG5V contains 16GB of internal flash memory compared to the card-only TG1. The HDR-TG5V is also a tiny bit smaller (just by a few millimeters) and roughly 20 grams lighter than the HDR-TG1. In a way, the built-in GPS is also a good for portability—it can help if you’re trucking the camcorder around all over the place, as you can tag your footage by location.

The HDR-TG5V is not a pocket camcorder like the Flip or the Sony Webbie HD MHS-PM1, but it can still squeeze into a pocket more easily than most camcorders of its class. The Sanyo VPC-HD2000 has a large, bulbous head (where its lens is) that makes it difficult to fit the camcorder in your pocket. The JVC GZ-X900 has roughly the same proportions as the HDR-TG5V, although it is a bit longer and wider.

The provided docking station with the HDR-TG5V also raises some portability concerns. The HDMI and USB ports aren’t found on the camcorder itself, which means you must bring the docking station along whenever you want to connect the camcorder via one of those ports. Sony does smartly include a small USB adapter that plugs into the slot-dock at the base of the camcorder, however, so you can do without the dock when connecting the TG5V via USB.

Battery Life (4.75)

The provided battery on the HDR-TG5V lasted for 95 minutes in our battery test (1 hour, 35 minutes). This is an average performance for a camcorder of its size and class, but the thing to note about the HDR-TG5V is that its battery compartment is enclosed. This means you cannot use larger, longer-lasting battery packs with the camcorder—something that is commonly done with traditionally-shaped, horizontal camcorders. Of course, the Sanyo VPC-HD2000 has an enclosed battery compartment as well (although its provided battery did have a bit more juice than Sony’s). More on how we test battery life.

The TG5V’s battery compartment is located on the back side of the camcorder, behind a thick, sliding panel. The panel does an excellent job protecting the battery compartment and it is designed seamlessly to appear like there isn’t a panel at all (like a hidden door).

LCD (7.88)

The LCD screen on the HDR-TG5V is the same size as on last year’s HDR-TG1, but it has undergone Sony’s new panel redesign. The screen now sits in a perfectly flat bezel so there is no indentation between the panel and the LCD (much like on Canon’s high-end models). This definitely makes the LCD look much sleeker, but it may also attract more glare to the screen. The entire LCD is coated in a glossy finish, which also adds to the amount of glare it collects.

The LCD is 2.7-inches in size, has a resolution of 211,200 pixels, and uses touchscreen technology. Another problem with the new panel’s glossy coating is that it actually picks up more fingerprints than previous Sony touchscreens. The TG5V’s LCD also pales in comparison to the 3.2-inch, 921,000-pixel screen featured on the Sony HDR-XR520V. As for the updates made to the camcorder’s touchscreen system and menu organization—they aren’t very good. We go into more detail about this in the Handling, Ease of Use, and Menu section (all above) of this review.

The LCD on the HDR-TG5V features 32 increments of brightness adjustment control, and its backlight level can be set to Normal or Bright. You can also set the color intensity of the screen with 16 different increments. The camcorder does not have a viewfinder.

Feature	Sony HDR-TG5V	Sanyo VPC-HD2000	JVC Everio GZ-X900	Sony HDR-XR520V
Display Size	2.7 in.	2.7 in.	2.8 in.	3.2 in.
Display Resolution	211200 pixels	230000 pixels	207000 pixels	921000 pixels
Touch Screen	✓	✗	✗	✓
Viewfinder	✗	✗	✗	✓

Stabilization (7.05)

The HDR-TG5V is equipped with Sony’s SteadyShot stabilization system and the results were quite good in our testing. In fact, the TG5V’s impressive stabilization may represent its single biggest advantage over the Sanyo VPC-HD2000, which had horrible stabilization. The stabilization system used by the TG5V is digital, which means it may result in some image degredation when used. Sony’s higher-end models, like the HDR-XR520V and HDR-CX500V use optical stabilization systems. More on how we test stabilization.

In our low shake test, the HDR-TG5V was able to reduce 49% of the shake with SteadyShot engaged. You can see the results quite clearly in the graph below. The blue lines represent the movement of the camcorder with stabilization turned off, while the more compact red lines show its motion using SteadyShot. In our high shake test, the camcorder fared a bit worse and was only able to reduce shakiness by 42%. In comparison, the Sanyo VPC-HD2000’s digital stabilization system couldn’t do anything to reduce the shake in our test. In fact, the camcorder actually shook more with image stabilization turned on.

The HDR-TG5V couldn’t match the stabilization results acheieved by its larger cousin model, the Sony HDR-XR520V. This is expected, however, as the XR520V is much heavier and larger than the TG5V. Another thing we noticed with the TG5V was that the camcorder had some trouble maintaining focus during our shake test. Focus would go soft every now and then, although the camcorder did regain it after a few seconds. We must note that we only noticed this when we repeatedly shook the camcorder for an extended period of time (more than a few seconds), as we do in our stabilization test. You can see the image lose focus in our video below: