Note: This review is done with two days experimenting with the camera with otherwise professional equipment (i.e. a professional-grade tripod), and with very little physical experience of the quality of other cameras on the market. The purchase price for the camera at the time was £289.99, with a spare battery, high-quality memory card and a camcorder bag for an extra £55. The remarks made about value for money, unless otherwise stated, will be in reference to the price mentioned.
With me having to step up to the semi-professional market when it comes to producing content, now that I am actively having to search for a website to contribute to and build up my repertoire, the most expensive piece of kit was going to be the camcorder. I had saved up for a couple of months, and since I had enough money, I decided to go for the more recent cameras. This meant that I would be futureproofing myself, as well as getting my hands on some of the bleeding edge features that wouldn’t be in my normal price range for a good year or two.
I immediately went looking at Sanyo cameras, and I spotted that Sanyo had brought out new cameras in their Xacti range. The TH1, the WH1, the HD2000, and the FH1. The TH1 was released as a mid-range camera that is capable of lower-size HD capture (720p, to be precise), although having seen footage from the TH1 it was obvious that it’s abilities in low-light environments were less-than good, and the still-photo options were apparently laughable compared to those that are available in comparable cameras. The WH1 has the same specs as the TH1, but can be submerged in up to 10ft of water, for an hour. The HD2000 is the absolute bleeding edge of this year’s releases, and is the only ‘pistol-grip’ camera that is in the new range. Despite it having no real other extras other than the ‘hotshoe’ and external mic port compared to the FH1, it was an extra £55. Therefore, I went to the FH1.
The specs pretty much talk for themselves; 1080i and 1080p capture sizes at full 60 frames per second, up to 600 frames per second on a smaller resolution, 12MP photos with an integrated camera flash. 16x Optical zoom, with a combined 160x zoom. Top recording time is supposedly 2hrs with the standard battery, but you can, immediately after a full charge, usually get another 20 minutes out of it.
For usability, it uses the standard form factor, although the size of the camcorder itself is very small. It’s actual dimensions are 53.3(W)×57.3(H)×105.0(D)mm, and that’s the maximum dimensions (including lens) . Apart from the power button, all the controls are mounted at the back with the exception of the focus being on the top, although still situated as far to the rear of the camera as possible. Having not used other cameras before, I found this layout much easier to acclimate to than most appear to in the other reviews I have seen. The layout means that you can situate the camera, pop open the display with the opposite hand (the display has to be open in order for the unit to operate at all), hit the power button with the same hand, and then you can operate it one-handed until you need to turn it off. All the buttons are relatively accessibly with the thumb, and the index/middle finger can be used to alter the focus. Altogether it feels like a very natural process, and since the two most important functions have the two largest buttons on the back, the chance of you hitting a button incorrectly is very low. The build quality itself feels very high, and has a good feel in the hand that’s supporting it. There’s minimal glossy ‘fingerprint magnet’ surface, but it isn’t completely banished. Fingerprint magnet surfaces are the bane of my life, and this device has enough to make it look glossy, but Sanyo have had the sense to use a different plastic for most of the camera.
When it comes to actually messing with the camera’s settings, there is an absolute plethora of ways to turn things off and on, making the camera work different ways, or set the camera to be overridden by a confident user. However, these are hidden behind ‘tabs’, and it took me a little while (and a quick browsing through the manual) to find out how to get to the other settings. But at the same time, this is the only layer of menu; each option is displayed in the tab without having been grouped together into another menu inside a sub-menu, and this is appreciated.
KAECY.US is the freshly resurrected blog of Allan 'Kaecyus' Bowden-Smith; an Aion nut with too much time on his hands. 
