Panasonic SDR-SW20 review

Footage is recorded in MPEG-2 format to SD or SDHC cards. Long play mode grants just under an hour of footage with a 1GB card, while a 4GB card will record the same amount of time at maximum quality.

Adjustments available include backlight compensation and portrait-enhancing, soft skin mode. There are also two low-light slow shutter modes, although they can cause blurred video. Scene modes include surf and snow for holidaymakers.

Performance
The quick start feature sees the SW20 start up in 0.6 seconds, although this is effectively a standby mode and will have an impact on battery life. With moderate use of the quick start feature, the battery lasted just over an hour on one charge. It's definitely worth investing in spare batteries from Panasonic.

Because the SW20 only packs a 1/6-inch CCD sensor, video doen't look great as a consequence. Footage is not as crisp as we'd like and fine details are lost. Colour isn't bad, though, and exposure copes well with moving from dark to light contrast areas.

Low-light performance isn't much to write home about either, with lots of gritty noise. This may be an issue underwater as well as shooting at night. Footage is fine for Internet sharing, but compression artefacts and noise look poor on larger screens.

Conclusion
The novelty of waterproof gadgets takes a long time to wear off and we'll never tire of drop-testing products. The Panasonic SDR-SW20 certainly has the fun factor, looks great and is highly affordable. But this cheery toughness comes at a price in terms of image quality, and besides, it's still not robust enough for more extreme pursuits like scuba diving. If you're happy to stick to the shallow end, the SW20 does the job.

If you the only thing you're planning to wet is your whistle, you could pay a similar amount of money for the similar-sized Samsung VP-HMX10.

Edited by Shannon Doubleday