Buy Panasonic HDC-TM10K Hard Drive Full HD Camcorder On Sale

Awkward to buy -- awkward to use
I think I have normal hands but they just don't seem to get along with this unit. Especially if concentrating on the scene and subject. Inherently, my fingers expect to fall on the most-used buttons: start/stop and zoom in/out. Nope. The zooms are there along with a button to take a still photograph [which should be better done in post-processing, I think]. The start/stop takes a thumb move which for me jars the camera and puts trash at the end of each session.
The unit is light-weight and portable -- positives and the reason it was purchased.

One word for the charger and external power supply -- awkward. Nope, you can't charge and use the power supply at the same time.

One word for the software -- awkward. Or maybe two words -- awkward, clunky. I spent a lot of time learning how Panasonic thinks things should be done and trying to adapt that to doing what I wanted to do. Probably should have searched for a third-party program to do editing [which would up the cost]. I could never figure out how to shorten and compress [ok, degrade if you will] some scenes to get the file small enough to use ordinary e-mail systems. So, one word for sharing -- awkward.

The buying problem involved the supplied battery being dead-on-arrival useless. After charging as instructed, the camera rejected the battery as 'incompatible'. Did it again, got the same result. Bought a second battery with greater capacity -- worked very well; that's probably something to do anyway... One word about getting a replacement for the dud battery -- FAIL [not even awkward] as the parties involved -- Panasonic, J&R -- could not figure out a way to do that and I was not inclined to return the entire kit. Panasonic promised, after a three-way phone conference, to make good; two fax-the-paperwork sessions and four months later, not so. I have given the recorder to a [younger] friend in hopes he can make good use of it. I bought a Flip for my portable video needs.

it's ok
The Camcorder is good. The only problem is the definition is 1080i, not a 1080p HD video.

for the price, its amazing
Got a good deal on this at Costco - since it is last year's model 2009 (I bought it April 2010), the price is great for such a versatile camcorder. Be prepared to sacrifice battery life and storage capacity for shooting in the highest quality HD, which, if you are looking for an HD camcorder, you likely already know.

The bundled editing/burning software is a little quirky but worked fine on my 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo, 3 Meg memory, Windows 7 machine. It is limited in its features, but at least it worked at burning both HD in AVCHD onto a DVD and burning MP4 in SD onto a DVD. Haven't tried editing the content in iMOVIE yet, but hope it will include more capabilities.

Bottomline - if you are looking for an easy to use, easy to edit and burn, easy to playback, fairly cheap (at least it is now) and works with your current HD A/V and computer accoutrements... this is the one for you.

Fantastic
After reading the reviews I was skeptical so I purchased a used one for 279.95. I got the item 3 days after purchase it was in flawless condition. It came in the box with all the accessories. The camera works great I still have not cracked open the user manual to get into more detail of extra settings. Picture quality is vibrant crystal clear and I know it said in the description it was full HD but I admit I was not expecting it to be so. But IT IS! Mine has a 8Gb internal memory also ordered a 16gb sd card for a little extra. Easily swaps from internal memory to external memory with the touchscreen viewer. Yeah it has a touchscreen. I dont remember reading that but I was pleasantly surprised. Other reviews say low light quality is bad, I dont know how little light they were trying to use it in but I disagree. I was filming my sons baseball game at dusk right before the lights came on and picture quality was still great. Definitely recommend buying this product.

Mixed bag: know what you're using it for
First, the two versions of this camera are identical other than the fact that one has built in memory, the other does not. BUT, consider how much you're paying for that memory? Could you just buy a larger card with the price difference? Probably. Considering that for the sake of convenience you will probably be recording to cards most of the time (so you can just plug them into the computer) I would probably go for the internal memory-less version.

I ran several tests on the camera for a few days to try out its features. I am not a name-brand fanboy, nor am I a dedicated videophile. I'm just going to give you an unbiased impression based upon what my eyes saw:

PROS:

1.)Pretty good daylight recording. Considering what I paid for it, I was surprised by the quality. It's not a Canon S10 by any means, but I was pleased.
2.)It is unbelievably small and light. Shockingly so. If you are looking for the smallest possible 1080p capable camera to take on a daylight hike, I'm thinking this is near the top of the list.
3.)Has a few of the bells and whistles of a larger camera, including the ability to swap out memory cards, a decent touch-screen menu interface where you can play with the settings (as opposed to some of these cheap-o cameras), a genuine optical zoom, and an HDMI output right on the camera. Unlike most, I had no problem with the touchscreen.
4.)Quick power-on/off feature works really well, battery life was not a problem.


CONS:

1.)You'll notice I mentioned how surprised I was by the camera's performance in daylight? I was equally surprised by the nighttime/indoor performance. As in, it was atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. We're talking awful pixelation, terrible graininess, significant artifacting and block-iness, and a general inability to see anything. The onboard light provided little help. I'm not talking about near pitch black rooms, I'm talking about normally lit indoor areas. The camera is basically useless for indoor or nighttime recording unless you're using multiple floodlights. I would walk through the house, and even our well lit dining room had significant problems.

I chalk this up to the tiny sensor (less than 2 megapixels) and tiny lens. Sure, it keeps the weight/size factor miniscule, but it really hurts performance. I am not understating this problem, at all. I tried to use the manual shuttings (such as they are) to correct the problem, but playing with frame rates, settings, and modes made little to no difference.

2.)No built-in lens protector. Having a dangling lenscap to annoy you defeats some of the purpose of having such a compact, easy to whip out camera.

3.)Screen tearing/rolling shudder is a problem on quick pans, even more so than other CMOS cameras I've tried. I'm not sure what the issue is, but be forewarned.

4.)The cameras awful low light capabilities make most of the individualized settings useless.

5.)If you want to make that final jump from 1080i to 1080p, you're limited to the "digital cinema" mode that disables the vast majority of the manual settings. A small nitpick, but somewhat annoying.


SUMMARY

Know precisely what you're going to be using this camera for before you buy it. The video quality in daylight for the price is pretty decent, the form factor/size is phenomenal, and the indoor/low light video quality and options are horrendous. Basically, if you're only going to be using it outdoors, and size is of paramount important, it's worthy of consideration.