JVC HD Everio GZ-HM445 memory-card based camcorder

At £250, the JVC HD Everio GZ-HM445 is not quite as cheap as some of the low-cost video cameras you will find at the bottom of the budget spectrum but, despite its size and price, it has some surprisingly high-end features up its sleeve.

The GZ-HM445 weighs less than 200g before you have added a memory card and battery. The smart-looking unit is available in black, silver, red and blue. It was comfortable to use and simple to operate, especially if you stick to the Intelligent Auto mode.

Video is recorded in the 1080p high-definition (HD) resolution, or lower, and it uses the popular AVCHD recording format for superior results compared with many other cameras, though a fairly powerful PC is required to play and edit footage. Picture quality was good, with strong but realistic colours and a lot of detail.

In our tests we noticed some digital distortion when panning, particularly with high-contrast subjects, and when shooting indoors the camcorder's quality dipped somewhat as the available light waned. By and large, however, the GZ-HM445's video capabilities were good for a device of its price.

Photo quality was less impressive, though. The camcorder's top resolution is the equivalent of a 2-megapixel still camera and you can get better still shots from most mobile phones these days.

Video is stored on SD memory card and a simple innovation provides GZ-HM445 users with an easy way to expand storage: the camcorder features not one but two memory card slots, potentially allowing for up to 128GB of space to store recordings.

The camera also has an extremely long 40x optical zoom lens, but we found that the image stabiliser didn't do a particularly good job of ironing out camera shake when it was zoomed to full stretch.

Another surprising feature to find on a relatively cheap model is the touch-sensitive screen. The Everio's touch interface is one of the more straightforward systems we have seen on camcorders but it wasn't without problems, mostly because of the small size of the on-screen buttons and the cramped display.

It was also disappointing to find that there is no HDMI cable in the box, but otherwise this is a good-value HD camcorder.