Sony CX450 Handycam Camcorder

AnthonyUK

I have purchased one of these and it's a quite competant performer @ £219.99 from Argos

Light and easy to use, it has a flip out monitor (which also opens up the lens cover when you open it) saving having to flip it up on other units, it has a generous 60x optical zoom (and a useless higher magnification 350x digital zoom),
an effective optical image stabiliser (Optical SteadyShot),

Decent pic quality in the Highest Quality mode (FX),

High Quality (EX) mode was a slight step down from FX mode,

Standard (HQ) mode was reasonable quality with a little noise,

and Long Play recording mode was much worse with very noisy video and very noticeable pixellation (but does give a very long recording duration : it's not recommended though for general use if quality is important to you),

and it came with some useful (if gimmicky) picture effects, a range of auto exposure modes and manual exposure controls, automatic audio level control and manual audio level control (which stops the AGC "pushing back loud effects" syndrome on loud sounds and "pumping-up-the-levels" traits when sounds are too low), a good 9.2 mp camera, a voice cancelling feature for recording, and it's ultimate trump card : it features a full 5 channel surround sound microphone and full Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound recording facility (although you can select Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo as well if you wish if you don't need the full fat surround sound experience).

It also has a useful (stereo) mic socket which is good for improving your sound quality if you need it and a stereo headphone socket so you can monitor the sound being recorded BUT there is NO accessory shoe on top of the camera so you can mount your external stereo microphone on : you have to buy the (rather expensive) optional extra Sony accessory mount with mounting shoe which uses the camcorder's tripod screw mounting, on which to attach your stereo microphone.

Downsides to this camcorder are :
you get NO standard AV lead for non-HDMI tv's at all (this has be purchased online or ordered from your local Sony dealer), all you get is a short length Sony micro HDMI lead and Sony USB lead,
and you get no standard micro SDHC / SDXC card and adapter to get you started (but these can be easily purchased for affordable money) and you have to go on-line to download and print out the full user manual which is another downfall (a basic guide is all you get).

The 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround facility is good, but the 5.1 effects that you get will actually get depend vary much on what you are trying to film : as a general rule I have found that fairgrounds, monster truck shows, firework displays and outdoor open air public events such as concerts etc work best providing the most pleasing sonic enhancement and separation even though it's not quite the same as using several separate microphones that you would normally require to create a 5.1 effect (but it does genuinely work with voices from the rear channels ie crowd sound and various directional effects across the three front channels), in stereo mode, although vanilla flavoured regular Dolby Digital 2 channel stereo, it's as good as you can reasonably expect.

The HD picture quality in good light is nice textured and sharp with good levels of HD detail and they display nice colours (when you manually set the white balance) with decent colour rendition, in low light, it is a bit gritty, slightly noisy and a fair bit grainy, (but the camera is trying it's best to get a pic in low light, at least you don't have that horrible green infra-red Sony Night Shot setting which ruins the pic totally) but it's not a totally bad result.

The low lux setting is horrid as the camera selects a low shutter speed resulting in a horrible visible jerkiness at times so I tend not to use that at all.

The 9.2mp pix from the digital camera facility are reasonable quality and are quite acceptable (and there is also a lower quality 2.1mp setting which isn't quite so forgiving nor as good).

Battery life is reasonable at over 2 hours filming so this is a plus for it.

It's a good buy for the money

Pros lightweight simplicity, good HD picture quality, excellent 5.1 surround sound (decent stereo sound too) and generally easy enough to use, good battery life.

Cons NO non HDMI lead for older standard TV's, and no micro SDHC / SDHC card and adaptor supplied and you have to download and print the full manual at https://www.sony.co.uk