Canon HG10

Any use of the word ‘sexy’ to describe a piece of computer equipment is likely to tell you more about the psyche of the reviewer than the engineering and design work that went into creating it, yet the Canon HG10 does have us racking our brains for a suitable alternative adjective. It’s a seriously beautiful bit of kit, with just the right level of chunky, multi-textured heft to make it interesting without causing your arm to droop, and there’s enough technology packed into its little frame to impress the most ardent lover of gadgets.

As well as packing a sensor capable of taking 3MP stills, it can also capture full HD video – 1,080 vertical lines, recorded either at its default setting of 50fps interlaced, or at 25fps progressive scan. The footage is saved to a 40GB hard disk in the nascent AVCHD format, which is both fantastic and bloody annoying for some. AVCHD is a very efficient, HD-optimised subset of the H.264 codec, and Mac users are well served – even iMovie ’08, for example, happily imports and edits AVCHD footage. Unfortunately the format has worse support on Windows, where even the Adobe video apps don’t support it natively.

And that’s a shame, as the video from the HG10 is very good indeed. While, like competitor products such as Sony’s HDRSR7E, it’s not able to challenge proper pro-level DV cameras yet, it nevertheless produces video that is easily good enough for the most demanding aspirational consumer. Yes, there’s a little purple fringing on areas of high contrast, but it’s not to the detriment of the overall picture. In full automatic mode, it does a cracking job of adjusting focus and white balance quickly, and provided you brace your arms against your body, the anti-shake provides good stabilisation even at full 10x optical zoom.

The audio performance is a little lacklustre, mind you, and whether you’re shooting 3MP stills in camera mode or snapping 1920x1080 shots as you’re recording video, stills must be saved to a miniSD card, not the 40GB hard disk.

The most irritating thing, though, is the ergonomics. It’s light and largely comfortable to use, but the main mode dial is awkwardly positioned, and while it thankfully eschews the touch-sensitive controls of the Sony, the HG10’s menu and control system is opaque and fiddly. It’s at its most exasperating when trying to use the camera’s manual controls.

But even taking all this into account, this is still a very competent semi-pro camcorder. Online pricing puts it at least £100 cheaper than Sony’s effort, and while its specs don’t quite match up, it feels like a better product. And it’s just so damn sexy.