Sony NSC-GC1 review

The camera includes a fixed f/3.5 lens at the equivalent of 42 millimeters for still photos and 48 millimeters for video. You can use digital zoom while shooting, but that function only crops and enlarges the picture to the point that, when you "zoom" in the full 4x, you're looking at 1/4 the picture you should be getting. A cheap 3x optical zoom lens would have been preferable to this nigh-useless system.

Even worse, this pocket camcorder comes with neither internal memory nor a memory card. On top of the $200 price tag for the device itself, you can expect to sink at least another $30 into a 1GB or larger Memory Stick Duo before you can even start shooting photos and videos. Similar pocket camcorders like the Small Wonder and Flip Video include 512MB to 2GB of onboard memory, and retail for far less than the GC1. Though they let you pull stills from video, those competitors lack the GC1's still photo capabilities, but their significantly lower prices make them far more tempting choices for inexpensive YouTube video capture.

At heart, this video camera aims solely at casual users who want to post their videos up on YouTube. While its QVGA and VGA clips look acceptable for the Web, they just aren't very good for much else. Its fixed-length lens forces you to either shoot at one distance, or let your video become notably pixelated and blurry as you digitally zoom in and out. Without a microphone jack, the GC1's tiny onboard microphone presents your only audio recording option, and even when pointed directly at the audio source the recorded sound comes out tinny and muffled. Any sort of motion further degrades the video, filling clips with blur, camera shake, and poor focus. While the GC1's movies might look decent in a tiny YouTube window, don't expect them to hold up well in any other medium.

While not outstanding, the GC1's 5-megapixel snapshots look surprisingly good for a pocket camcorder. It shoots fairly quickly, and its shutter tends to lag for less than a second in most situations. Even with the flash turned on, I managed to take several shots in a row at a decent clip. Typically, portraits and landscape shots turn out well on the GC1, though it falters at subjects with fine details, like text, artwork, and pets. Its disappointing lens and low-resolution sensor simply don't capture textures or small characters nearly as well as a dedicated camera. Its still photos also suffer from the same motion problems as its videos; the slightest camera shake or subject movement can hurt or ruin your shots. The high-speed shutter mode can help counteract shake, but only when using it in direct sunlight or with the flash; the high-speed shutter fires too fast and its ISO sensitivity can only hit ISO 400, rendering indoor shots without the flash extremely dark. The GC1's pictures are fine for e-mailing, posting to the Web, or even making 4x6 prints. If you want to make larger prints or perform any amount of cropping and editing, however, the GC1 will disappoint.

The Sony NSC-GC1 certainly looks stylish, but looks alone can't save it. With a price tag $50 to $100 higher than competing pocket camcorders and equal or slightly higher than far more feature-rich budget digital cameras like the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W55, I simply can't recommend this awkwardly designed, low-quality pocket camcorder. If you want to pop up YouTube videos easily and not do much else, the RCA Small Wonder remains your best bet. If you want a solid camera that can also shoot YouTube-worthy video clips, choose a dedicated digital camera instead. If you do choose the digital camera route and already own a decent-size SD card, you might want to try the Canon SD1000, which costs more than this Sony, but is just barely larger in size and delivers comparable video and 7-megapixel stills.