Sony Webbie Camcorder

I recently purchased a Sony Webbie MHS-CM1 HD Camcorder for one of our seminar speakers and thought I would share a few comments on this little video camera. As you can see it comes in three colors, I'm not sure why they decided on orange and purple. My guess is that they thought those colors would appeal to the younger crowd. I settled on the silver model without much deliberation. The first thing you will discover is that the camera is very small, 1.7 inches wide and 2.4 inches tall, and weighs only 7 ounces. You can easily put it in your purse or pocket.

The Webbie has received some mixed reviews from consumers, mainly because the people who didn't like it should have purchased a different camera to begin with. The Webbie is a striped down version of what people have come to expect from a Sony camcorder. There is no image stabilization and the camera is reported to have problems handling low light situations. The built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery only lasts for 85 minutes. Zoom is 5x optical and 20x digital, which is like most entry level digital cameras. But other than that, the HD video and 5MP still photo features are impressive in such a small package. Video is stored on removable Memory Stick PRO Duo media (sold separately).

My application called for a camera that was going to be mounted on a tripod and aimed at a subject that was sitting in a chair. So, image stabilization and zoom were unimportant. The camera does look tiny when mounted on a tripod, but its size will be easy to travel with. The Webbie comes with component, composite, and USB cables. It allow you to select between three screen resolutions, 1080, 720, and standard 480. The short list of menu options makes it easy to setup without wasting a lot of time reading the manual. The 2.5 inch swivel screen feels like it could snap off and the detachable lens cap isn't very useful, but for $179 I'm hoping that it will last half as long as some of the other Sony products that I have owned.