Gadgetory

the biggest attraction of Sony's low-end handycam HD RCX 220 is its 199 or so price point but even that seems too much for the mediocre video quality occasionally confusing interface and frill free feature set you get for the money on the plus side the camcorder is relatively small in light it's got a built-in lens cover and a built-in USB cable that you use for charging it doesn't ship with the charger that you plug into the outlet but it works with most phone chargers as well as plugging into your laptop you can also if you don't want to spend $20 for Sony's charger buy one for between 5 and 10 dollars online the camcorders one advantage over say a camera phone or a camera is its 27 X zoom lens the 32 X refers to extended zoom which requires that you turn off active steady shot and this camcorder uses electronic image stabilization not optical other mythical numbers include the claim of 8.9 megapixels for still photo resolution the sensor actually outputs two point three megapixel images which are interpolated up you're probably better off with your cell phone for stills the real problem with the CX 220 is the video quality it's pretty mediocre with poor tonal range mushy edges and incorrect oversaturated colors and that's only if you change the default settings out of the box the camcorder defaults to sub HD quality low bitrate video you know the type of video we saw five years ago it's terrible and the interface can also be confusing for changing that default because it automatically jumps to the cancel icon rather than okay and they're in opposite ends of the screen plus it repeatedly pops up warnings when you try to change it and the joystick feels jumpy from moving around the screen and the screen is pretty coarse and displays completely different colors than those in the recorded video the CX 220 is essentially the same model with respect to video quality as the CX 230 CX 2 and pj2 30 they all have the same sensor and lens though they have different features ultimately with all of them you end up paying more money for the same poor quality video I wish I could say that $200 buys you a great camcorder deal it really doesn't I'm Laurie grinning and this is the sony handycam HD rcxd 20