Shop For Sony HDR-CX100 AVCHD HD Camcorder with Smile Shutter & 10x Optical Zoom (Black)

I ordered this as my wife and I sat in our delivery room waiting to deliver our baby. It came a couple days later, and it's been great. Very easy to start using, which was very important to me - I've never owned or used a camcorder. Here's what I've found after 3 months of usage:

Pros
- Easy to use
- Intuitive set up for those who use computers and digital cameras already
- The screen is big and moveable, so it's easy to film
- Great for use with a baby because it turns on quickly. We've captured many milestones this way, as well as quirky behavior as our baby has gone through different stages
- Picture quality is good for me - I'm not filming a commercial movie. Just footage for family to see as our baby gets older


Cons
- The battery has shown that it weakens. On the second charge, there was slightly less charge in it.
- Need to use specific Sony products, such as memory sticks. This can be more expensive
- Pictures captured using the camera function are not as good as with a camera. They tend to be grainy
- Not good in the dark. The less light you have, the more grainy the picture appears


Additional thoughts:
- If portability is important, buy one with a moderate amount of internal hard drive space, such as this one and download the files to your laptop/external hard drive/writeable DVDs. Use external memory chips for when you are on a trip. We find that this is more than enough space for taping footage of our baby - I think I've used about an hour of footage and not had to use the memory chip yet.
- Battery power seems to be the bottleneck, so consider buying a second battery for trips
- Buy a bag for it, because you will need to store different cords. I have a habit of losing them, so I need somethign other than the box to keep them handy.Get more detail about Sony HDR-CX100 AVCHD HD Camcorder with Smile Shutter & 10x Optical Zoom (Black).