This is one of those video cameras that seem like a great idea; include a pico projector so people can watch videos right away, no television needed. In practice, it doesn't work out quite that well. The projector is really dim, the room has to be pretty darn dark to see the video and it has to be projected onto a white wall. The sound from the camera is just barely useful (I still can't find the volume control). This camera is capable of really good HD video, projected the video looks sad.
My biggest complaint with this camera is the ergonomics, how does this thing feel in my hand and how easy is it to use. I could never find a way to grip the camera with my right hand so that I could work the record button and the zoom button. My hand was always twisted around in an uncomfortable position and I couldn't hold the camera steady. Using my left hand on the screen wasn't a whole lot of help either. I do have big hands. The strap cannot be removed. I could get it to just barely fit my hand.
There is this ridiculous USB cable built into the camera with no way to remove that useless piece of computer connection. The thing is poked into a slot in the camera grip. Personally, this is just extra weight to carry around. The pigtail is short, plugging into a laptop might work, but forget a desktop computer. The box does include a USB extension cord (but hey, I have to carry that around to use the camera, why not just make the cable detachable like every other camera manufacturer).
The camera has a power switch located behind the flip out touchscreen, which has to be the single dumbest place to put a power button. When the video screen is flipped open, the camera turns on. In order to use the power button, the video screen has to be flipped open - turning on the camera. The other two buttons behind the video screen are a play button which switches the camera into playback mode and back to shooting mode; and a projector button that turns the projector off and on. Once the projector is on, the touchscreen no longer works. Menus and video selection has to be done with the Zoom lever and the photo button. This was a combination that I couldn't master, it was almost impossible to use. The even worst part of this whole mess - whatever memory was selected in the Setup menu, is the memory used for playback and projection. What a pain in the rear to switch between the internal memory and an SD card.
Along with the three oddly placed buttons, there is a miniHDMI input and output port. The box contains a miniHDMI to standard HDMI cable. There is also a 3.5mm jack for a microphone or "plug in power" (whatever that means).
There is a tiny flip door on the side of the camera for some kind of multifunction connector (no cable was included for that) and the AC adapter to charge the camera. The bottom of the camera has a trap door at the rear for an SD card and the tripod socket is in the center of the camera. If a tripod quick change plate is mounted on this camera, it is highly likely that the SD slot will be covered. Oddly, the battery release can be moved from either underneath the camera or from the side behind the video screen door. This is another mixed blessing - if I have the camera mounted on a tripod, I can open up the video door, turning on the camera, and then slide the battery release to remove the battery, turning off the camera.
The disaster is that all the buttons on the camera are virtual; meaning everything to control this camera is on the touchscreen. That would be OK if there was some logic to the menus and buttons on the screen. This is the biggest mess of menus I have ever seen. The menus are: Shooting Mode, Camera/Mic, Image Quality/Size, Playback Function, Edit/Copy, and Setup. The Setup submenu is about 50 selections all in some odd groupings that are accessed by scrolling down (not swiping like in an iPhone, but touching an arrow to make the menu roll down one page). Finding the settings I need is the most frustrating complicated thing I have ever seen.
The lens on this camera is not good. Outside chromatic aberration was bad (this is blue fringing around white objects against a dark background). The 55X end of the video is so soft, it is just barely useable. I have a sense that there is some kind of digital enhancement for the far end of the telephoto because the image goes very soft. Oddly, there is a setting to go even further with digital zoom (I had this setting turned off, and the video was still horribly soft). The worst part of this lens is the coating, there just doesn't appear to be any multilayer anti-reflection coating on the lens. I have never seen so much front element flare in my life. I was shooting in a room with fairly bright lights overhead; depending on where I stood the image was completely washed out with flare. From the exact same spot, my iPhone didn't have that problem.
The only good thing about this lens is the wide angle. It is one of the widest lenses I have ever seen. I shoot volleyball matches and this is perfect to get the full court into the shot.
Still images are just fine outside. Indoors in low light, image noise is a huge problem - the pictures are extremely grainy. I would say they are just slightly worse than an iPhone in the same situation.
The video quality is good. I have a Canon HD video camera (Vixia HFM400) and the video looks pretty similar between these two. Image stabilization is surprisingly good on this camera. It does filter out hand shakiness surprisingly well.
The recorded audio is absolutely outstanding. This blew me away, with all the other problems with this camera; I didn't expect the sound to be that good. I recorded a friend's rock concert - I'm pretty certain the audio was up in the 100db range, it was loud. The camera managed to attenuate that sound and record it perfectly. That's a feat not many cameras can accomplish. As usual, the microphone picks up sound all around, so noise will be picked up from everywhere.
There are some decent features that took me a while to figure out and find. I do like the focus follow feature; touching the screen on the thing you want to maintain in focus will then follow that thing around the screen keeping it in nearly perfect focus. The battery seems to have a fairly long life. The camera does weigh nothing at all - it is teeny tiny (shoot the AC adapter is almost bigger and heavier than the camera).
The camera is very particular about SD cards. I tried an ez Share 16GB class 10 card, the camera got all finicky about recording to it. The first three minute clip recorded fine, but then the camera went into an impossible to leave circle of trying to recover images and files from the card. I eventually went back to the internal memory. The first clip was recorded correctly.
Transferring movies to a computer is a living nightmare. For some unknown reason the computer can only see the memory that was selected for recording. So if I need to transfer movies from both the internal memory and an SD card, I have to connect the camera twice messing with that stupid setup menu to select recording media. It is a stupid waste of time. The video and still images are included in a single folder. This connects at USB 2 speeds - meaning it takes forever to transfer HD movies.
I didn't mess with any Sony software for this camera. There was no disc included in the box, only a website to go download software. In fact there was no description of what software I could get there or why I might need it.
There is a lot that I dislike about this camera. For the price, there are much better cameras with better ergonomics, better lenses, and easier to use. On the other hand, I haven't seen a camera with as wide a lens, and none of the others have a projector. If for some reason you absolutely have to have a projector on your camera, well this is the camera for you. When it comes down to it, this is more like a $250 camcorder that had a projector bolted on for an additional $150.
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