Canon HG21 review

At first glance the controls seem a little too simple for all these features: we found ourselves hunting for a menu button. The menus themselves are simple, and the joystick has a pleasing action. But the shooting option navigation, which uses the joystick to cycle through several small menus instead of one big one, is intensely frustrating to use.

Performance
Focus is fast and assured. Video is crisp with plenty of fine detail, as you'd expect from a high definition model. Colour is natural and well-reproduced, athough we found that setting white balance manually gave best results.

Low-light performance is good, with minimal noise problems. In an area where most camcorders fall down the HG21 stands up well, even if the lamp isn't particularly powerful.

The 3-megapixel stills look decent enough, with respectable colour and sharp definition. Stills capture is possible during video recording, but it is basically a frame grab from the video.

It's worth noting that even though the hard drive will hold 11 hours of HD footage, the battery won't last anywhere near that. As such, it may be worth investing in a spare or high-capacity battery. Similarly, the lamp isn't that powerful and the onboard mic isn't great because of slightly muddy sound -- and it has only two channels, so it won't get the best out of your five-channel surround sound setup. Consider making use of the mic input and accessory shoe -- while it's great to have these flexible expansion options, add-ons do add onto the cost.

Conclusion
The Canon HG21 is an exceptional camcorder. We just wonder what the point of it is. With its giant hard drive, great-looking video and assorted high-end features, it's worth the high price tag. But how many consumers are willing to part with that kind of cash when SDHC cards and external mics are likely to bump the price even further? The Canon HG20 seems a much more likely prospect, sporting a 60GB hard drive with a correspondingly drop in price. The Panasonic HDC-HS100 is another 60GB model with a more approachable price tag. Still, you know you've found a great product when the worst thing you can say is that it may be too good for its target market.

Edited by Cristina Psomadakis