Sony HDR-CX550VE

With the HDR-CX550V Sony finally began to break down some of its long-standing policies regarding its Handycam camcorders. For starters, the CX550V is the first Sony Handycam to offer 24Mbps AVCHD recording, and it is the first to enable the use of SD/SDHC memory cards in addition to Memory Stick PRO Duo cards.

The HDR-CX550V also offers manual shutter speed and aperture controls, which is something that is rarely found on consumer camcorders from Sony. Additionally, we were impressed by the camcorder's extremely wide angle lens, which captured video at the widest angle we've ever seen on a consumer model.

As far as performance goes, the HDR-CX550V did a decent job, but there was no area where it really stood out from the flagship models from other manufacturers (although it did do very well in our stabilisation test). We are impressed that Sony lowered the price of the HDR-CX550V to £1100 which makes it one of the cheapest flagship camcorders on the market—particularly surprising for a model with 64GB of internal flash memory (the Panasonic HDC-TM700 is cheaper, but it only has 32GB of internal memory).

Overall, the HDR-CX550V isn't the best flagship model on the market (that title would currently go to the HDC-TM700 from Panasonic), but it is a rather impressive camcorder that is both easy to use and a powerful tool for professionals. Its major downside is a lack of any alternate frame rates for recording HD video (other than regular 50i). If that's not something you care about, however, then the HDR-CX550V is definitely worth a look.

Note: Due to the problems raised in our low light sensitivity testing with the HDR-CX550V and its wide angle lens, we have adjusted the low light sensitivity score for the camcorder. We tested the camcorder using different settings (including doing a test without using any optical zoom) and came to the conclusion that the camcorder should receive a higher score than it originally earned. The low light sensitivity score has been updated and the camcorder's new overall score has also been changed on our ratings page.