"Drop dead gorgeous" comes to mind here. Although the SDR-H20 isn't as curvy as some of the other models, it has a unique shape-it's a little wide, but fits perfectly in the hand. Silver and black looks classy.




The menu layout is very simple, based around a single menu button and multi-function joystick that retains the intuitiveness. Even the menu button is con¬veniently located near the record button; in fact, none of tlle "essential to use while recording" buttons are located anywhere else but right under your thumb ... in a word, brilliant! TIle zoom switch exudes a slick feel. TIlere's a button on the viewfinder recess called "Power LCD Plus" tllat allows you to set the bright¬ness of the LCD viewfinder in five stages. Our only gripe (yes ... we always manage at least one!) was the bulky battery pack that sticks out of the back.

Since tlle SDR-H20 uses a massive 30 GB hard drive to store video, you won't need to be spending on media, or transferring video to your PC to clear up media space very often. Equally important, less moving parts makes for drastically reduced chances of a breakdown-anyone who's spent time with DV Tape based camcorders will agree. As we'd expected, tlle SDR-H20s IS blew us away. Hand-shake is normal, but the minor jitter that is usually apparent at tlle long end of the zoom (32x optical at the long end) was absent-excellent results as far as the effectiveness of the IS system goes. The zoom works very well in tandem with the optical IS system that Panasonic employs.




We were very impressed with the image quality that the SDR-H20 was able to provide both indoors and outdoors. At a price of29,990, the SDR-H20 is an excellent product. Good out¬put quality, an excellent IS system-the best we've tested, and a feature rich offering that looks as good in the flesh as it goes the SDR-H20 should be your only choice if you have 30K to burn.


Specifications:
1/ 6-inch CCD image sensor (0.8 megapixel);
LCD viewfinder 2.7-inch¬es (123,000 pixels);
weight: 430 g.