The Sanyo Xacti HD-1000 is the one of the first cameras we've seen that offers full high-definition (1080i) recording.

In theory this means that your home videos will be as clear as the latest Blu-ray film. However, this camcorder is not all it's cracked up to be. In good light we found that colours were faded and in low light, recordings were grainy. The camera has a 5-megapixel still mode so it can take photographic images but the ones we took were blurry and unimpressive.

The design of the camcorder echoes its cousin, the Xacti VPC-HD2 we looked at a while ago. All the main components, such as the zoom, sit on the top part of the camera behind the lens, and a blue light surrounds the record buttons. Below this is an annoyingly tiny joystick for the menus. The side hides the flip-out 2.7in screen, which is extremely clear. The rest is blank, giving plenty of holding space.

The camcorder itself has no connections: instead you need the supplied dock with sockets for the included HDMI cables as well as a USB port. It comes with a remote control but not a memory card, which will bump the price up a touch.