Panasonic SDR-S150   

Performance
Though it's fun and easy to shoot with, that's where the enjoyment stops. The most obvious problem I hit is its pitiful battery life. After fully charging the battery, I shot about 14 minutes of video and a handful of stills with a few flash shots, at which point it had dropped to about one-quarter of capacity.

	Not for still photos unless you're planning to keep 'em small

Plus, the focus is slow to lock. And once I got home, I couldn't help but be disappointed with the results. Videos never achieve true sharpness and display severe interlace artifacts, and weaknesses are exacerbated by poor auto white balance--the sensor is on the side of the camcorder--and inconsistent metering.

For stills, throw in random flash exposures and a seriously overprocessed look that should settle the new math argument once and for all: Three 800,000-pixel sensors never equals one 3-megapixel image.

	Disappointing video--poor white balance

If it were cheaper, I might forgive the SDR-S150 some of its flaws. I want to--its SD-based recording of MPEG-2 files is a compellingly attractive convenience. But until this convenience hits the right quality threshold, I recommend sticking with cheaper tape- and hard-disk-based models from Canon, Sony, and JVC.

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