Buy Cheap Sanyo VPC-CS1 High Definition Camcorder Review

I had high hopes but this camera let me down
I waited 2 months for this camera to come out. The look and feel is wonderful. The pictures are no good. Sanyo advertises that the pictures are 8mp, but once I started reading through the manual I found the camera is take 3mp pictures and converting them to 8mp size. End result you get grainy pictures that you can do nothing with. It defeats the purpose of the camera feature all together.

The videos are very good when playing them back on the camera. When trying to play them back on my PC or television I was dissappointed with the grainy videos. Even at Full HD 1080, I can say I was disappointed.

The one thing I thought was amazing was the 3D sound. I was amazed at how the audio playback came across when playing it on my surround sound.

I also noticed the video skips when trying to playback in Media Player. Using the software that came with the camera things played fine. That was extremely irritating.

I kept this camera for 50 days before I had to send it back.
With all that said I had to send the camera back. I will probably go with the Kodak Playsport which is 0 cheaper and is waterproof.

This camera is off the chain!
I got this camera along with a 16mb memory card to record media..It records great videos and decent pictures with the 8mb camera. Small and easy to use...It is gorgeous. Of course, under dark conditions things get grainy, but with proper lighting it is awesome...The mic zoom feature is also great, in that you can choose omni mode or target mode to aim the mic..And as small as it is, it still has a tripod port. All in all a tremendous technical breakthrough.

Great picture
Great picture quality! SD card makes it easy to move videos to the computer. Since the camera is so small it can be difficult to hold and work the controls if you have big hands. Worth the $.

Nice Compact Camcorder
For the price, the small compact size, and having HD on top of that made this my choice to get as my compact camcorder for vacations, etc. This is what I found in my short month of testing and using the camcorder: Because of it's small lens (I'm assuming), it does not let enough light in for indoor shooting so some shots may be darker indoors or it may take time to adjust to the indoor lighting so the subject being shot becomes more clear. Outdoors, the video comes out really well! I noticed that because of it's small size and the shakiness of one's hand, the video comes out shaky/jerky and does not look like the image stablization can compensate for this. If you have a steady hand and scan the scenery slowly, it looks pretty awesome. It could have used better gripping material and a little change in the shape to grip onto the camera better as others have said. To zoom I have to use my other hand as it is too hard with the grip the way it is but that is not a problem for me. I'm not sure about the 8 megapixel claim on the still pics, but that is why I have a digital camera where 5-6 megapixels is good enough for me.

Overall, I guess I couldn't have expected much more (but was hoping) for the price and size of the camcorder. As I use it more, I'll comment on it later. I love the size of the camcorder and using the SDHC memory cards and it will make it easier for vacations, etc. I also have not used other compact camcorders so maybe they have the same issues as this one. I got the Sandisk Ultra II per Amazon's recommendation that turned out to be the renamed Sandisk Ultra per Beach Camera - see my review on that.

Neat Camcorder/Camera, but needs a flash
Sanyo's new product had two major problems (major enough that I returned the item). First, there is not a flash, only an LED that barely lights up anything even a foot away (pretty much useless in my estimation). Second, since I used the item as both a camera and a camcorder, the camera button was in a position to high up on the body that it was hard to take a picture with one hand (and this was my third Xacti and I could easily take pictures one-handed with the first two Xacti I owned). I'm going to wait for the next version (and since I'm not the first person to complain about these two design issue, hopefully they will be resolved).