Canon MV600

The Canon MV600 is basically a very good digital camcorder, although it has suffered from CCD problems.

I would hope new MVxxx cameras would now be cured of this defect.

My MV650i failed with 'the black screen of death'. The problem is like the lens cap is permanently on. You can play back OK, but you can't record. I also believe this problem is not restricted to Canon camera's.

Canon's DV600 is proof that a quality 'brand' camcorder can now be had for a little over £300, something that would have been hard to believe even a year ago.

There are probably two sets of people who will buy this model; people upgrading from older 9mm camcorders, and buyers on a budget. Neither will be disappointed. It boasts a small size, decent build (toughened plastic), good quality video (800k pixels) with 18x zoom, and enough basic features to do the job and everyday camcorder should do. It is really impossible to fault for this sort of use.

I'd recommend investing in a few accessories. First, a wide-angle attachment, either from Canon or the cheaper but nonetheless excellent equivalents from Japanese company Raynox (a '0.7' lens gives you an extra 43% image area or '0.5' if you want a wider field still). This will make it much less stressful capturing most situations. Second, a spare battery is also advisable as the LiIon cell supplied lasts for only about 1 hour in normal use. Third, a polarising filter will help saturate colours and keep out the glare in bright light conditions as well as protecting the lens.

Minor gripes? The digital zoom is a bit pointless but that's true of any of the current generation of digital camcorder. It's also a bit noisy, though not unacceptably so. Picky perhaps, but Firewire was not the best choice for connecting to a PC as most come with a USB 1.0 or 2.0 port. Mac users will be fine however.

The Canon MV600 has the basics. Good quality zoom, but the handshake compensation could be a little better, but its satisfactory in the optical zoom range. You dont use the digital zoom range much anyway [who can hold it steady enough] It has some nice digital faders and colour effects. Only connects to a PC via firewire port [DV out] -theres no USB port. I would recommend it if your looking for an entry level digital camcorder.