JVC's GZ-900 is a high-level camcorder that films in Full HD and has a 9 Megapixel photo mode.  So has the manufacturer managed to meet the challenge of an 'all-in-one' device?

Handling

The X900 is a very attractive camcorder, and its flat, pocket-sized frame and glossy finish both point to a high quality product.  The lack of a handle or a strap is still surprising, but you needn't worry: the X900 has been specially designed to be held in your hand, but a wrist-strap is also included in case you drop it.

As soon as you open the screen and choose the 'Camera' mode on the scroll wheel at the back, the camcorder switches itself on and is ready to film.   A PLAY/REC button on the side allows you to switch to playback mode to watch the videos you've just filmed.

There's no viewfinder, so everything is done on the screen, which partly uses a touch-based controls.  You can slide your finger up and down a tactile strip along one side of the screen to scroll through the menus, but you still have to confirm your choice by pressing a conventional OK button.  These controls can be rather capricious, though, and sometimes you have to press several times to make your choice.  This is the X900's main weakness when it comes to ease-of-use.


Despite being rather expensive, the X900 does not have any internal memory: it can only film on SD or SDHC cards that you'll need to buy separately.  You slide the card in at the back and it's protected by a flap.  Be careful though, as the X900 can't use all memory cards: make sure you have one that's in at least Class 4 so it can handle writing video fast enough.


The battery (BN-VF908U) allows you to use the camcorder for 1 hour 15 minutes after a recharge of 1 hour 50 minutes.  The charger is a single piece of equipment that includes the adaptor and the power cable, which makes it easy to carry around.  A docking station is also included, which is designed to remain by your computer or TV, ready to connect the X900 using USB, HDMI, composite or component video outputs.

Image Quality

The X900 films at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Full HD) using the AVCHD format.  The level of detail is helped by the high 24 Mbps bitrate, which easily beats most of its competitors.  Outside, colours are bright and lively, which often gives the impression that they're attractive.  It's a standard marketing effort from manufacturers, who know that the general public prefer eye-catching colours.  It's much less impressive in low light levels, where noise quickly creeps in.

The X900 has a 38.3 mm lens at the equivalent of 24 x 26, which gives a rather wide field compared to the majority of camcorders which rarely get below 40 mm.  On the other hand, the optical zoom only manages 5x while the Panasonic HDC-SD200 (12x zoom) and the Canon HF20 (15x zoom) are on sale for around the same price.


The optical image stabilization is worthy of a commentary in itself. It's the first that I've ever seen that's visible to the naked eye for the user. All you have to do is shake the camcorder and watch the two lenses move to compensate for the shaking (see our video). I must admit that I was surprised by the location of the stabilization system in front of the lens, rather than behind, but it works very well. Video is correctly balanced, with no movement, even at long focal lengths.

You can film for 1 hour 20 minutes on a 16 GB memory card in UXP mode (24 Mbps), which works out as 20 minutes per 4 GB. Four different bitrates are available--24, 17, 12 and 5 Mbps--to allow you to get more video onto a memory card, at the price of a reduction in quality.

Photo Mode

For years, manufacturers have been talking up the photo mode on their camcorders by claiming they include a sensor with a certain number of Megapixels, leading consumers to think that a camcorder can easily replace any digital camera.  It was never a very convincing argument, especially recently when digital cameras have begun to improve at video, especially in HD, which has reversed the trend.  That hasn't stopped JVC going for a Konica Minolta HD lens that produces 9 Megapixel (3456 x 2592) photos.  The result is images that have plenty of detail that will make perfectly reasonable prints on 13 x 18 cm paper.  This 9 Megapixel resolution is only available in Photo mode.  While filming, the X900 can also capture still shots but is limited to 5 Megapixels (3074 x 2304) because some parts of the photo sensor are used to produce the Full HD image.  Either way, the photos suffer form a magenta tinge with some overexposed areas. 

Let's be frank: these results are neither a surprise nor a disappointment: most camcorders have always struggled with faithfully reproducing colours for year.  It's best to think of the photo mode as something for use in an emergency when you've forgotten your real camera … even if you're more likely to forget your camcorder.