After holding myself for several years on the purchase of a new camera, I got one. I bought my old camera at Fry's and got the service contract. The thing broke three times and the last repair end two days after the service contract expired. It broke shortly after I got it back. I spoke with several managers at Fry's and the all said 2bad. So this time I went to Best Buy. I have always had and heard great things about Best Buy service contracts.
I had spent several weeks looking up HD camcorders online. The new AVCHD codec seemed to be the biggest problem of the new HD cameras. Everywhere I read that you need a monster computer and not many editing programs support avchd. I have a monster computer for multiboxing and the avchd compatibility isn't such a problem anymore. I never liked tapes and optical disc didn't rub me the right way. I researched the hard drive camcorders for a bit, but HD have failed on me in the past and I wasn't ready for that again. Which left me with the Flash based HD camcorders. The HF10 was the perfect match online and all the reviews were good. When I held it at Best Buy I was sold. This camcorder is about the size of a soda can and is light enough to not even notice.
I've had it for about 3 days and I'm amazed at the quality. The battery life isn't what I wanted, but I can always fix that with extra battery packs. Being able to shoot and get the results I want isn't always easy. Once I have learned all the settings and a bit more about situational settings it should be a lot easier.
http://www.usa.canon.com/app/images/camcorder/hf10.jpg
