Comments on: Sanyo VPC-WH1 HD Waterproof Flash Memory Camcorder w/ 30x Optical Zoom

By: Gianpaolo Cammarota

Gianpaolo Cammarota — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:58:11 +0000

Ok, it’s cheap and fun because it can go in the water. Still, it’s not worth the money.
1) When zooming in or out, the movement is not continous. It’s like he camera stops every third of a second for recalculating the focus, light, b/w balance and everything else and you can totally see all those little stops in the resulting movie.
EVEN if you don’t zoom, but there’s things moving in the scene (or changing light), the same problem appears.
2) when zoomed all in (30x) the camera doesn’t focus well on the subject.
3) the image stabilizer is weak. Hand held shooting is almost impossible.

Had to return it. . .
Rating: 1 / 5

By: Gadget Girl

Gadget Girl — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:18:33 +0000

My husband and I went on a honeymoon trip to Hawaii a little over four years ago toting a Sony Handycam with its custom waterproof case and underwater light arm that was a bulky mess (both for handling underwater and hauling around on a plane). This would have been so much handier!

In addition, getting video off this camera is a breeze. Flash memory is much more portable than tapes and offers about the same level of storage (1Hr for the 8GB cards we have). My only gripe is there’s no stabilization, which makes the higher levels of zoom (this thing can home in on a leaf in a tree 100 yards away!) pretty useless unless it’s mounted on a tripod and your subject is not moving.

UPDATE: With the recent birth of our daughter we’ve been using the camera for non-waterproof applications. The HD video is BEAUTIFUL – lots of detail. The camera is easy to use – I got it working with no instruction manual needed. Once the video is taken, you can create still images on the camera itself from the video you’ve taken, which is a nice feature. My daughter made a cute face during the video and we were able to capture it on a photo as well. The videos upload easily via SD card.

This really is a great deal for an HD camera and consider it a bonus that it’s waterproof. It’s small, portable, easy to understand – you can’t go wrong!
Rating: 5 / 5

By: Richard Carlson

Richard Carlson — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:47:54 +0000

Expect an unpleasant surprise when you open the box. This camera ships without a memory card — it’s useless. If you are far from a major camera store, as I am, you have a big problem. The fact that you need to buy a card isn’t even mentioned anywhere is the setup, quick-start, or any other portion of the owner’s manual.

When you finally call in frustration, they refer you to a well hidden section of the website.

Small memory cards are cheap this is a big hassle for small$$$. What next? Will they sell cars without motors.

I’LL NEVER TRUST AMAZON AGAIN.

Rating: 2 / 5

By: LewisMB

LewisMB — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:00:15 +0000

I have used this camcorder for about 3 weeks, the HD video playback is horrible. I borrowed my friend’s Kodak Zi6 and the video quality is far better. I research about the file format that both camcorder record, the Sanyo records with “H. 264″, the Kodak records “MOV”, and they should be similar. But for some reason the Sanyo is way behind. The only thing I like about it is “waterproof”. I tried to get help from Sanyo, but its customer service is terrible too. I am returning it soon!
Rating: 1 / 5

By: DigitalArtist

DigitalArtist — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:51:01 +0000

The camera is small, looks nice and is easy to use
but the video quality sucks.
Rating: 1 / 5