 JVC did an excellent job of "overselling" this cam ... Strengths: Compact. Can be carried in pocket.
Weaknesses: 1.8" LCD is way too small. Does not put date on videos. Focus is very slow in zoom ranges. Video image is dull and somewhat dark. Very difficult to hold still.
Summary: JVC did an excellent job of "overselling" this camcorder. It's small, cute, and sexy; but that does not a good camcorder make. This unit has a 1.8" screen that's virtually impossible to see unless it's up to your nose, so you would be better off with a viewfinder, which it doesn't have. When outdoors, trying to video your kid sledding downhill, you will find it virtually impossible to hold steady and track your moving subject in the twinkie little LCD. On top of that, its focus is so slow that if you are panning and zooming, most of your action shot will be out of focus.
Since I take a lot of family videos, I want the date on the videos, and this unit can not do it. Called JVC 3 times about this and only on the third time did they have a tech helper even remotely competent enough to recognize that it only puts the date on your LCD, not your video, which is a deal killer if you're chronicling your family life.
I called JVC a total of 8 times both before and after I bought the unit. I found their tech help to be virtually incompetent, all they do is read the same manual that comes with the camera.
The "MicroDrive" is also a great sounding idea. JVC makes it sound as if you can take the "junk" software that they send with the unit and make a DVD in no time. It took me 5 hours to get a one hour video off the "MicroDrive" and burned onto a DVD. Even with USB2 it took 45 mins to get it on my computer's hard drive, and 4 more hours encoding, hitting the 2 gig limit, finding a way around the 2 gig limit, and re-encoding with the glacially slow software encoding program supplied with the unit.
If you are even somewhat serious about taking videos that you may care about, do your self a favor and steer clear of these "Everio" units, and get yourself a "real" camcorder with enough money left over to get a realtime "hardware" encoder.
I now have a DV tape camcorder unit. I hook it up to a hardware encoder and watch a 1 hour video one time through on a TV monitor to take notes for my DVD label legends. When finished, I hit "burn" and I have a DVD disc in hand in less than 10 mins. This is so much simpler, and the hardware encoder actually produces better quality video, and without having to tie up your computer's processor for hours.
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