Sanyo Xacti WH1 HD Waterproof Camcorder

Though the camera boasts HD video recording capabilities, it only shoots at a maximum resolution of 720p. Full HD would have been nice, but considering the camcorder's price, it's good enough. You can also set the resolution to 640x480 if you intend on saving memory space.

As a still camera the WH1 shoots at a maximum resolution of 2 megapixels, which isn't really very impressive considering that it doesn't take much to get a higher resolution into a CMOS sensor these days.

Performance
As an underwater camcorder, the WH1 was quite entertaining. Being carefree about your camcorder getting damaged while shooting fun videos at a family vacation is priceless. There were no issues with the underwater videos shot using the WH1.

With the good point out of the way, the overall image quality of the WH1 frankly qualifies as 'high definition' only because of its resolution. The image sensor was practically incapable of capturing the little details that would justify the resolution. In most cases, the image looked like someone had applied some bad watercolor filters to it.

Color reproduction was very phone-cam quality, which is quite sad for a commercial camera like this one. In most cases there was a slight magenta or greenish overlay over the picture, which is typical of the cheap CMOS sensors. There were instances where the image quality flickered terribly in indoor lighting.

In low light the camcorder resorts to higher ISO levels, which is the way it should be, but the greenish noise that came with that was very discouraging. Besides the testing purposes, I preferred to take the camcorder out only in brightly lit areas.

The audio quality however was outstanding. There was clear channel separation in many instances and the WH1 managed to clearly record the voices of everyone present in the location. I would have preferred if it had a way to reduce ambient noise, but I'll let that pass, as it's not something I'd expect from this category of camcorders.

Conclusion
When we test camcorders, we test them for all the possible situations where you'd need a camcorder. So while the Xacti WH1 did a great job in underwater videos; as an all-out family camcorder, it left a lot to be desired. For this reason I can recommend it as a second camcorder for those who intend on extensively using it for the one thing it does well - waterproof shooting. But if you're looking at making a jump to high-definition video recording, this one's definitely not for you.

Available for Rs. 34,000.�