New HG10 user coming from Sanyo HD1
 

I bought a slightly used HG10 on EBay. It was from a company in Canada that deals with returned merchandise. The camera has one stuck pixel on the screen and was about 1/2 the price of retail up north here. Maybe $250 cheaper than the US prices. Yes, Canucks get ripped off on most electronics.

Anyway, I was playing around last night and I must say, wow... what a camera. The main issue I had with the Sanyo HD1 was that it was not so good in low light. Outside, it was fine. Inside... terrible. The Canon HG10 is much better in this regard. I didn't try in near darkness, but just an average lit room at night produced wonderful results that would have been almost unattainable (at least quite noisy) with the HD1.

Response on the camera is quite good in terms of moving about menus and focus speed. The rocker for the zoom is heads and tails better than the HD1 (all that it has been hyped up to be). The camera itself is a little larger than the HD1, but seems to be quite comfortable to hold. Will see when recording longer sequences. The HD1 is a "pistol" grip, held vertically rather than horizontally. I'll have to get used to this as well. The HG10 has an integrated lens cover, much nicer than the removable one from a casual user's point of view.

To be determined...
1. Battery Life: I know there are other options available for this camera in terms of battery size, the HD1 used small batteries and you needed lots of them.
2. Change From Removable Media: The Sanyo used removable media and I had a couple of 4GB cards for it. We are talking quite a storage jump here.
3. PC File Support: The sanyo recorded in MP4 format (I think H263) and the HG10 uses H264. The latter is more supported in more software decoders such. Should be better here.
4. PC Interfacing: Will have to connect directly to a PC, rather than the option of using a card reader.

I did like the Sanyo, but its drawbacks with dim lighting were a bother, along with poor battery life, especially if not charged frequently. It just seemed whenever I wanted to use it, the battery was low.

I'm not a "pro" (very far from it actually) like some here, just wanting quality video for my family and friends.

Darren Schmidt