The only downside was that it didn't have a firewire cable with it. I happened to have one and, once it was plugged in, it just worked. You can upload video to iMovie, controlling the camera from there. The still's camera quality is nice too - it means that you don't need to carry a stills camera and a video camera when out and about.


It does everything you need, simply wonderful....!   October 30, 2005
 53 out of 54 found this review helpful

I drove my Wife absolutely mad and never saw her as I was constantly thumbing through magazines and looking at reviews online when I had decided to upgrade to digital from my old analogue Samsung thing!

Spending hours at a time and being in Sales for the last 15 years, I felt I knew everything about most camcorders. I knew what I wanted, something you could just switch on and use (easy for kids) and also something that had everything on it if I wanted to fiddle about.

It also had to have DV in/out so I could make movies and transfer them backwards and forward from my PC, editing them if required.

The Canon MV850i was new out, nobody had them in stock (even though they claimed to on their websites) except Warehouse Express. "If we could get a few hundred more, then they would all go as well" were the words of their customer services.

I placed my order, waiting a few days for delivery and haven't looked back since. It does everything I wanted and more and the picture quality is simply amazing. The high optical zoom was a big bonus for those all important aircraft shots at airshows and the ability to manually focus onto infinity and leave it their was wonderful. Fast jets going by in focus all of the time meant you could concentrate on framing them whilst zooming out as they got closer and in as they went by.

Anyway, I would never want anything else. My sister was quite jealous when she saw it and the specs / results as she had just spent nearly double what I had spent on her new Sony Camcorder which was actually not as good.

JUST BUY ONE, OK!

You'll be really impressed and it's a bargin price now also!


Good camcorder   October 6, 2005
 52 out of 53 found this review helpful

Got this camcorder becasue it has more features than similar Sony 22 model, and here was only a few pounds more (list price is 50 pounds more).
Build quality seems good, optics are good, and there is a nice widescreen lens which can be fitted if needed. Excellent feature set, good battery life, and good night mode (including a bright white LED for when its really dark).
Got the camcorder working with my Linux PC, and have managed to create DVDs with title screens etc (all using entirely free software on a free OS - everything downloaded from the web).
One small complaint is that there is a small amount of motor noise, but I think this would be a problem with all but the most expensive camcorders. I'm looking at ways to remove it in software before burning to DVD.