Sony Handycam HDR-UX20

Summary: The camcorder is advertised as 'Full 1920X1080'. If you look at the fine print, it is 1920X1080i....(i = interlaced). The video quality is acceptable outdoor, but not great. The video quality from my TV program (in 1080i) looks better than the video quality from this camcorder. The microphone is too close to the button. Whenever I zoomed out, I can hear the 'click' sound in my video. If I selected the FH mode (highest resolution), a single-side DVD disk can only last for 12 minutes. DVD+R DL can last a little bit longer, but they are way too expensive and are not re-writeable.

The standard battery gives me about 80 minutes of power. The build-in 8 GB memeory gives me around 1 hour of recording time. If I take this camcorder to a long trip, I will need to buy a lot if DVDs and memory sticks, and the total cost for these DVDs and memory sticks can add up to several hundred dollars. With these several hundred dollars, I can get a HDR-SR12 which gives me better pictures and a built-in 120 GB hard drive. The memory stick is easy to put in and is very hard to take out. You will need a very small finger to get the memory stick from the camcorder.

The camcorder is rated at 5lux. That means the indoor video is not great.

On the good side, I can play my video on my PS3. I don't need to convert the video format or transfer it to a different DVD. The zoom is very clear. The camcorder is smaller than the hard drive version.


I don't think this camcorder is worth $999 (suggested retail price). I paid around $600 and I don't recommend to pay more than that.