We’re incredibly excited by this camcorder. We thought this was going to be a year of better developments on the low end, but, Sony suprised us with something truly amazing for a last minute holiday season push with these new models. Even on its own, the HDR-SR1 is something to celebrate.

On the whole, this is a very promising camcorder. Earlier this year, we praised the standard definition DCR-SR100 as the best HDD camcorder to date. The HDR-SR1 is everything we loved about the camcorder, plus HD recording, a mic jack, a headphone jack, and the powerful multifunction ring. However, it’s important to consider that this is a first-generation camcorder in the AVCHD format. Sometimes it’s good to sit out the first round and wait for issues like editing and compression noise to be addressed.