Appearances can be deceiving. At first glance you might be tempted to write off the NV-GS37, since its squat, bulging body looks as though it might be heavy and awkward to hold. In fact, the bulbous plastic side section rests surprisingly easily in the palm, and the camcorder is generally very comfortable to handle.

A conveniently placed joystick sits just under the thumb, making it easy to navigate through menus, particularly since the camera provides clear onscreen illustrations of what functions the context-sensitive direction controls actually perform.

The NV-GS37’s unusual shape may well have been an attempt by Panasonic to avoid a bottom-loading tape mechanism. Critics maintain that having to insert tapes from underneath can hinder tripod-based recording, since the camcorder would have to be removed from its stand to replace the cassette. While this perhaps isn’t such a big issue for non-professionals, we appreciate the manufacturer’s decision to implement a side-loading tape drive. It means that the NV-GS37 has one up on the bottom-loading Canon MV930 and JVC GR-D340, too.

Like most of the other budget camcorders on test, there’s not a huge amount of support for still photography. The NV-GS37 can record stills to DV tape, but this isn’t as convenient as storing them on a separate memory card, and photo quality wasn’t much to write home about anyway. The long 30x zoom lens is very useful, however, and a wireless remote control handset comes in pretty handy too. A front-mounted video lamp is very welcome, although using this will be a drain on the battery.

Overall, we were impressed with the NV-GS37’s picture and sound quality, although some of the other camcorders performed a little better in our indoor tests.

This article is part of a group test of budget digital camcorders. Others are:
Canon DC100
Canon MV930
JVC GR-D340
Samsung VP-DC161W
Sony Handycam DCR-HC35
Table of features can be read via our pdf download.