Sanyo unveils smallest-ever wide 1080i camera

...and what eXacti does this have to do with Macintosh, Apple, iPods, iPhones or anything else except of course to promote sister-site electronista!

feathers:

Ever heard of this app called iMovie?

MacNN has been doing this for years - to me, it just looks like Electronista lets them cover a lot more in a given day.

how does one look at the lcd at that angle?

One looks straight at it, from any angle. Like virtually every camcorder with a flip-out LCD, this one too swivels in every direction, so you can shoot overhead, below waist, from the floor, from in front of the lens, and every concievable position, as long as you can see the LCD. Just turn it around so it faces you directly.

I have seen some well-lit footage on their previous HD model (HD2); at 720p, it is remarkably good for compressed video (AVCHD). The old one retails for about $550, which is a lot of Hi-Def for so little cash. This one promises even higher resolution, although I'm not sure if it will improve on the low-light conditions over the old one (which was quite disappointing).

With some old plasma 1080 TVs down to under $500, one could easily put together a HD setup for home videos for under $1,300. A few years back, you would spend as much for a MiniDV camcorder and a decent-sized tube TV.

Gotta love the technology...

Sexy form factor and features are obviously big draws, but what about quality? Reviews of previous HD Xacti models suggest that the video they produce may indeed be hi-def, but is a bit noisy and doesn't look terribly good. What is the quality of the optics? How speedy and robust is the circuitry? Consumers in general need to recognize that there is a lot more to a camera or camcorder than basic specs about resolution, zoom, and clever software.