Sony DCR-PC110 Camcorder Review

The Sony PC-110 has an MSRP of $1999. The camcorder has a 10x optical and 120x digital zoom. The optical zoom is a little small but with such a small camcorder, it is okay. The Color LCD is 2.5-inches, and the camcorder includes a color viewfinder. The color viewfinder has its downsides for focusing but you can't find a color LCD/B&W Viewfinder on any other matchbox camcorder. The camcorder has IEEE1394 FireWire input/output, USB for digital images, Composite and S-Video output, and 1/4-inch mic inputs and outputs. The camcorder has a memory stick port where you can insert Sony memory sticks to capture up to 1152 x 864 images. The camcorder even has a pop-up flash to make sure your stills are well-lit.

A great part about the PC-110 is how it handles. It is rare for matchbox style camcorders to handle this well. Usually, I hate matchbox style camcorders and I believe that they are impossible to use. Sony ingeniously added a flip down stick at the front of the camcorder that you can use to better stabilize the small camcorder. This allows for extra stable video, which is usually a problem with such small camcorders. The camcorder is a little heavy; it felt heavier than the TRV-310 but you can still hold it with one hand. The zoom control is a little sensitive but it has multiple speed zoom which allows for great shots. There is a great ring focus on the camcorder, conveniently placed so you can zoom and focus at the same time with one hand.

Image quality is great on the camcorder. The PC-110 has a mega pixel CCD which produces high quality pictures. More emphasis should be put on the great lens on this camcorder. It has a Carl Zeis so it is top quality. A great picture is produced with it. The picture is better than its predecessor and is far superior to Digital8.

The camcorder has great manual control. The only downside to the manual control is that shutter speed and white balance are hidden in menus. Shutter speed is not number based but "situation based" though they did include them on the camera so you can tweak your images for superior quality. The microphone on the camera is not as good as it could be; it picks up a lot of the operator and not the subject, which is very annoying. Sony had to put the mic where they had room, it wouldn't fit anywhere else on this camcorder. The camera is so small!

This is a great vacation or portable video camera. If you want to carry something light, compact, will fit anywhere for travel but you still want quality, go with the PC-110. It's a great camcorder at a great price. It will certainly be as popular as its predecessor will and may be even more of a hit.

This camcorder was provided for review by Berger Brothers Camcorder Retailers, you can visit them at BergerBrothers.com.