We bought this camcorder before going on holiday last summer, and it has proved itself to be a fantastic buy.
It is lightweight, holds a long charge and is unbelievably simple to use, just charge it up,load a dvd and fire away. Our 12 year old daughter can use it with confidence.As well as the quality of picture being great, photographs are very clear as well. The sound can be a bit 'blowy'in windy conditions, but nowhere near as bad as our original Sony video8 camcorder(purchased in 1991!).
A couple of minor problems, we have never been able to load the Sony software onto our computer (probably my fault) so have not been able to take photos off the disk and onto the computer, although it is as easy as pie to finalise the discs to watch on the dvd player. You also have to be careful when filming as, basically, what you record, you keep, there isn't really any going back over the discs.I think I have read before that it isn't a good idea to use this type of camera ir you want to edit your work, and I would probably agree, but if you just want to build up a collection of tiny little discs of memories, it's fantastic.
When we first bought the dvd recorder, we hadn't really researched the media you record onto and nearly had a heart attack when we found that Sony discs are so expensive, but we have found discs called Ridisc which come in a bundle of 25 and they cost about 30p each, making the camera a much more reasonable proposition to use frequently.
WE purposely didn't write a review immediately after buying the camera as we really wanted to get used to it, and now we have, we would recommend it wholeheartedly. We also bought it through Amazon saving a lot of money in the process, and Amazons service was spot on.