all digital camcorders

In short, this is the camcorder you've been waiting for: vivid, almost broadcast-quality home videos. OK, that's assuming you know how to shoot steady and well-framed videos. The camcorder with its three CCD chips gives you the technical superiority over your next-door neighbors, but ultimately if you shoot trash, you get trash. But for those of us who know how to shoot like a pro (e.g., no in-camera zooming, steady and slow pans, no in-camera special effects), the results are simply amazing. If you, for example, are a serious amateur home-movie maker or an aspiring filmmaker, you'll definitely love this camcorder.

Because this is an affordable camcorder, Panasonic seems to have cut a few (minor) corners. Indoor/night shots are no better than the average consumer 1-chip camcorder. Of course if you have plenty of lighting, you'll once again reap the benefits of having 3 CCDs to capture light. But if you just use existing indoor lighting you won't find this working wonders. Also its optical zoom is lower than many newer camcorders. As always, digital zoom is next to useless.

The camcorder is pretty easy to set up and use; no Ph.D. in VCR programming required. For this review I just wanted to focus on its main selling point, the 3-chip video capture system. Other amenities include manual focus, 2MP digital still camera, remote controls, etc. Battery life seems average, after you cycle the battery properly a couple times.

If you want to take beautiful (outdoor) videos and don't have a fat wallet, you should definitely consider getting this camcorder.

NOTE: From what I read, the cheaper PV-GS120 model foregoes the manual focus ring, the wired remote and the flash. I assume that model has the same video quality as the GS200.

While this Panasonic really delivers great picture quality and colour, my real gripe is the stability of the image when hand-held ... it's awful compared to a Sony (yes, I did have image stability turned on!) It really needs to be used with a tripod.

Other features of the camera are impressive although it has too many things crammed into menu's. Some things are difficult to find - especially when adding titles. I really miss the thumb-wheel navigation that a Sony has.

Also impressed with the digital stills, although when compared with a digital stills camera, the images are fuzzy around sharp edges.

Overall, it serves my purposes as I need good picture quality and colour. The 3CCD's are excellent and battery life is reasonable.

Good controls and ergonomics make it realatively easy to use. The manual is not great, but you won't need it too much because the controls are pretty intuitive. The low light properties are not great. A camera like the Canon GL2 blows it away due to the larger lens and CCD sensors. But with enough light, the video quality is impressive for such a small camera. Good resolution, and fantastic color. In fact, I may like the color of this camera more than the Canon. Beautiful greens.

It works with iMovie on the Mac, except that the scene cut detection does not always come through.

This camera has very good still photo quality for a camcorder. Very good color (probably due to the 3 CCDs). Very little chromatic aberation (purple fringing). Typical for camcorder stills, there is a little bit of visible noise and some of that "video" look.

The biggest suprise was it's macro capability! You can focus just a few millimeters from the lens and get sharp, bright pictures.

Definitely one of the best performers for the price and size.