Hitachi DZ-GX3200A

Now we'll get a look at the wonderfully sweet stats for the Hitachi DZ-GX3200A. I guess you'll be crazy for it. Honestly now you'll most definitely enjoy it. As I normally do, we'll aim to uncover as well as list the finest deals purchasable in any place on the net just after the specs.

The Following Review By: John Jamison

In-Depth Review:

As the little sibling of Hitachi's DZ-GX3300A, the DZ-GX3200A serves up an almost identical feature set and similarly pleasing performance, including better than average low-light performance. The main difference between the two is CCD sensors-- the DZ-3300A has a 3-megapixel sensor, while the DZ-3200A captures images with a 2-megapixel sensor. This difference in sensors ends up affecting still images more noticeably than it does video. Since it can capture only 2-megapixel stills, prints from the Hitachi DZ-3200A won't be as sharp as those from the DZ-3300A, even at standard 4x6-inch snapshot size. Video, while only slightly less sharp, is still very pleasing.

The downside to that is the handful of touch-sensitive buttons hidden behind the 2.7-inch wide-screen LCD. Since they're mounted flush on the camera's body, the buttons are hard to tell apart by touch alone and difficult to use while shooting. Most other controls are well placed, and the menus are intuitive and easy to navigate. The DZ-GX3200A accepts four varieties of 3-inch DVD discs: write-once DVD-R and rewriteable DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM. It records video in MPEG-2 compression to allow 18 to 60 minutes of footage per side.

The camcorder packs a 1/3.6-inch, 2.1-megapixel CCD sensor. Though it uses 2 megapixels to capture stills, it uses only 1.2 megapixels for video. Other features include a 10X optical zoom lens, automatic and manual white balance and exposure options, as well as five preprogrammed autoexposure modes and three preset white-balance settings. Connectivity includes an A/V input/output jack, a microphone input, and a mini USB jack. There's no FireWire output, but most users will probably just drop the mini-DVD disc in their computer's DVD drive to transfer their footage. However, if you have a slot-loading DVD drive, the USB connection will definitely come in handy. Performance was almost identical to the DZ-GX3300A's, with a speedy start-up, comfortable zoom control, and adequately responsive autofocus. The electronic image stabilization was effective to about 74 percent of the camera's zoom range, and manual focus was difficult on the LCD screen. The one area in which the Hitachi DZ-GX3200A exceeds the DZ-GX3300A is battery life. Hitachi rates the DZ-GX3200A's battery life at as much as 125 minutes when using the best recording quality.

The DZ-GX3200A's video quality is about what you'd expect from a midprice MiniDV camcorder. At low compression, video was sharp with some motion artifacts and edge crawl, along with a bit of blooming. At higher compression levels, banding showed up more often in areas with significant gradations in brightness. Low-light footage exhibited more grain than well-lit scenes did, though the DZ-GX3200A yielded pleasing low-light video that was brighter and more colorful than one might expect at this price. The low-light mode helped to brighten dim scenes, though it does noticeably lower the frame rate, so moving objects and pans look a bit choppy.

The tungsten white-balance mode worked better, but we had to set white balance manually to get truly neutral results. If you're looking for a relatively inexpensive DVD camcorder and don't need the DZ-GX3300A's 3-megapixel stills, the Hitachi DZ-GX3200A might be for you. Of course, if you don't care much about stills and can sacrifice a little bit of sharpness in your video, then you may want to take a look at this camcorder's less-expensive sibling, the Hitachi DZ-GX3100A.