Customer Ratings & Reviews

It's a simple fact that if you want a camcorder with an external mic jack, remote jack, and shoe mount, yeah, it will be over five hundred dollars. This might be the cheapest new cam with these features you can get in the current year. That said, this is seven hundred dollars and it's HD. 4K TVs hit shelves in 2012, and in 2025, we have a 1080p camcorder. Taking a page from Apple, I assume this is mainly available to nudge you to the 4k offering. So how's the camcorder? It's alright. The biggest pro is the USB-C jack for charging. The last model used a barrel jack, so this is great. The body has sparkles baked in, and it's as light as your smart phone. The shoe mount is integrated well. Again, for this price, the external mic jack is the main appeal. Literally any mic can be used with the right converters. Sitting across the room, I can zoom into the tiniest text on the tiniest sign, and read it clearly. Try doing that with your iPhone. The user interface is dated and sad looking. A 2010 digital camera wouldn't feel outdated with it. The icons are small, so missing is a given, and they removed the control button if you preferred it to the touch screen. There is an unfortunate delay when listening to audio via the headphone jack. The manual contains contradictions (on one page, it says to only use the provided charging cable, on another, it says you can use any USB-C cable that is rated for the right power). The digital version of the manual is several hundred pages longer, making the printout seem pointless. Despite this being released less than a year ago, almost none of the optional accessories in the manual appear to be in production. That includes the really cool external mic and the extended life battery...both sold out. I'm not impressed with the Panasonic environment and its lack of enthusiasm to support newly released cameras. Finally, this cam connects via WIFI to be remotely controlled through a dated app. Sony Handycams did that 10 years ago. Why not have Bluetooth? While I'm certain this HD cam will be better than an HD cam from 2016, it's not impressive for the price. If I'm paying full, I want a fresh and intuitive user interface. I want accessories to be readily available. I want to control it remotely with Bluetooth. All in all, I can't rate it less than 4 stars because "it is what it is". It has 24x optical zoom with remarkable clarity, and those inputs! But man...that price.

Love it! I use it everday for my job. The menu took a minute to learn but easy enough. Zoom function works well and the camera feels comfortable in my hand. The SD card is easy to place in the camera and eay to remove. Con: Date/Time can only be seen while recording, not during playback. I'm not sure when the Date/Time became a national security secret but apparently you need third party software to burn the Date/Time on a final recording, which makes no sense. If you want the video to be a keepsake, be prepared to spend extra money to extract the Date/Time from the metadata.

Excellent quality and I love the portability of it. Highly recommend.

It does an excellent recording. Pictures and color are excellent.

Easy Nice seize and good views and long distance easy to find thing and take shots

Great camera for the price with excellent zoom and picture quality