Good quality optics and lots of storage, but not the most portable of camcorders

Impressive optical quality and storage space, though a touch expensive

Great image quality and plenty of enthusiast features for a very reasonable price

Cheaper than the HF10, although you need to factor in the cost of storage cards

Not much to tempt you over last year's HV20 but Canon still rules the roost when it comes to raw picture quality

Canon’s first hard disk-based AVCHD camcorder gets it mostly right, with a good level of features and the best image quality we’ve yet seen from the format.

Canon are only the second manufacturer in the Australian market to provide a flash based video camera (Panasonic is the other). Daniel Long gives his first impressions.

Canon grabs the crown for the most fully featured HDV camcorder for under $1500

A high end DVD-based camcorder for quick and clean shooting.

Canon typically puts out a good digital video camera and for a while had the market fairly well sown up. However, there is now plenty of competition and Canon can no longer just rely on its reputation to keep it at the top. The MVX250i is a mid range camera designed for average users who want something more than the bare basics. Its 860,000 pixel (effective) CCD provides a good quality picture in most cases, including in night mode. However, it can be slow to find a good colour balance.

A good mini-cam that compromises on some features in return for high portability. It has similar specs to the MV630i but a $600 higher price, so the cost for the reduction in size is a noticeable one. It is comparable with the other mini cameras in the lab.

The most expensive camera in this Labs by $100, it outshone the competition in almost all aspects. A real case of getting what you pay for.

It was a very close race between the Canon MV630i and the Sony TRV 355E as to which camera should take out the overall award. While the MV630i is $170 dearer, it has a better still photo resolution (1,024 x 768 compared to a screen-only 640 x 480), but the TRV 355E has superior PC connectivity and editing software.

Like the others in Canon’s MV500 series, the MV530i is about twice the size of Canon’s MVX2i mini cam, but is still comfortable to hold and use.

While $200 doesn't seem much in the overall scheme of things it can make a big difference for the consumer. The extras you get for it – higher optical zoom and a colour light up button – are not enough to make this your first choice ahead of the 530i. However, the performance of the two cameras is almost identical and that says a lot for the quality of the 550i.