Customer Ratings & Reviews

This is my first video cam and last camera I bought was 11 years ago. I wanted to make videos using something with more clarity and definition. This actually worked well and looked great. BUT, I noticed it makes a slight"chirping" noise when recording, AND the noise shows up on recorded video. It sounds kind of like crickets. It's only really noticeable if there is just a person talking, not if a lot of action and talking is going on. But, I want something to use for years, and it will always bug me. Not sure if it a bad cam or something in this model. Returning it tomorrow and need to decide if getting and trying the same model or try something different.

Surprised how compact this item is but very convenient.

Our Granddaughter loved it!! She used it continuously over the Holiday Break.

Like title says, this is basically a good camcorder for the money but I found it almost impossible to set up properly (date, time, time zone etc.) or move to camcorder features etc.. The button you use to do this is impossible to get to work right or at least I found it so. Ended up just leaving time, date, time zone wherever they were and gave up trying to set them the way I wanted and will just not bother trying to access other features, unless can get some help using the button from somebody.

Great little camcorder! I used it for football games and scouting and it is an outstanding piece of hardware. Compact and easy to use.

truly the most camera to cam with, changed my life

I purchased a Sony handicam to film my wedding. I should’ve tested it and learned about it beforehand, but I was very busy with the wedding. It did record ok (I think), but afterwards is where the trouble started. In order to get your video from the camera, you are supposed to use “Playmemories” software from Sony. This software does not work until you “register your camera with Sony.” Yeah, good luck with that, I tried and it took me to a PlayStation registration web page. Ok, no problem! Playmemories is available for iOS and Android per the manual. Yeah...nope. Not on iOS as far as I could find. There some sort of chinese(?) rip off app with 1 Star, but nothing else similar. Ok, so, surely you can get access to the camera with the USB cable. You can, sort of, you have to set the camera either for MTS (whatever that is) or Mass Storage. When set as MTS, files are under a multitude of different directories and are not labeled with anything useful. When set as mass storage, the camera is not recognized by Mac OS and is therefore not accessible. Ok, so I figure I can get the video from the SD card. Turns out, by default, the camera records to internal memory. I bought the recommended SD card for the camera, but the camera wouldn’t format it and wouldn’t copy the video to it. Figured it was a bad card, bought a second one... No dice, still wouldn’t work. Finally, broke out a 10 year old windows 7 laptop. It appears to be copying the video to the laptop now, we’ll see. All in all, wasted about an hour finding out that this camera is not suited to be used in a Mac or iOS environment. I haven’t been able to determine the cause of the SD cards not working. Before you buy, I’d recommend you search for the Playmemories software for whatever OS you use and read the reviews.

Amazing camcorder!!! So happy we decided on getting it

I bought the camera to set on a tripod and video tape my child's soccer games. It worked for about a month and then started having problems writing to the memory card. I sent it in for repair and then received it back in about a month. After a week of use, it's having the same problem. I've reformatted the memory card and used other ones to make sure it's the camera and not the card. At this point I want my money back. I didn't expect fantastic quality from a $200 camera, but I expected it to function.

Sony design engineers must have been drunk designing this device. The device allows to be placed on a tripod. For using a camera, most photographers use a timing device on the camera. To set up the timer, you have to go through a series of buttons to turn the timer on. Once done, you can only take one photo. Then the timer shuts off and you will have to start anew to turn it on. Most cameras designed by competent professionals, allow a simple process to take a photo using a timer for the shutter to close. It is a great device for taking videos. Another flaw is its small battery, and inability to charge the battery while taking a video. Another flaw is that for every video, it records two files, an MP4 file and the other, which is used for High Def. The designers did nit allow to use one or the other. Totally dissatisfied with this piece of junk.

exactly what I needed to record my daughter's lacrosse games!

A Best Buy Associate recommended this camcorder to me and I am glad I bought it. This camera is very easy to use and video quality is exceptional!!

Great low light camera. Great for the price.!! I recommend

just bought this to record my nefews concert and the picture is pretty good but the sound is horrible. Can hardly make out the intrstraments and sounded even worse through my sound bar

I am very disappointed with this camcorder because the video quality looks great on the camcorder and very crappy on my computer. On the computer the videos are very dark and grainy. It took me hours to edit the videos to make them somewhat usable for my YouTube Channel. Unfortunately, I did not get to return this camcorder back to BestBuy in time to get a refund. I wasted $200.00, which is a shame! I ended up buying a far less expensive camcorder costing $70.00 that has far better video quality when uploaded to my computer. Finally, I did not like the AVCHD formats, which is not standard. Therefore, I do not recommend buying this camcorder.

NEVER AGAIN will I buy a Sony. The camera works well and is priced fairly. The problem I have with this camera is it requires you install a Sony program to view your movies. So if you take movies at someone elses house you need to install the Sony program on their computer to give them a copy of your video. The sd card appears unformatted to a computer and plugging in the usb cable gets you nothing without the program. REALLY !!! Why would Sony make it so hard to get to your own videos? This has caused so much unnecessary fustration that I am done with Sony.

Worked fine but I was disappointed that it did not have external microphone capability.

Love this camera! Great for parents to have on hand!

We went into to the store to get advice on video equipment. Being novices, we wanted microphones and camera that were just plug and play. the sales associate spent his time telling us how he is a world renown videographer. Long story short, items are not compatible. Would suggest that sales associate stop pretending to be something he is not and focus on truly helping the customer

Returning this camera asap. The camera is impossible to connect with my computer. The "Play Memories" web portal/ download/application is about as convoluted and complicated an ordeal as I have ever experienced...just to be able to download photos and video to my computer from the camera. (Using a new computer.) The operations manual has about as much detail as a package of dry soup mix. Online manual with any detail is non-existent as well as phone support. I would not recommend this camera.