Customer Reviews

Sony DCR-SR88 120GB Hard Disk Drive Handycam Camcorder

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

So I was hoping for just a few things...good video quality, easy to use, lots of storage, and easy to burn onto DVD (I'm an older guy, so I didn't want to spend hours sorting out how to do all of this). This camera delivers! I just recently spent a week in Rome, and I shot video everywhere I went. I filled up 5 DVDs when I came back, and yet still had lots of available storage. The video quality is just fantastic for me...lots of great detail. I zoomed in from a distance to film the Pope in St. Peter's, and I could see him fairly clearly, considering I was quite a distance when I filmed. This camera worked like a champ! I also bought the 5-hour battery, and I never ran out of battery life. This camera is perfect for me!

You cannot go wrong with this Camera. Once you're into amateur video then you're good to go. The quality is fine, the light to the bottom is a plus for night time and the various scene settings just compounds the perfection of this little guy.

This camera is everything I was looking for in a digital camcorder. Easy to upload to the computer, nice resolution, and great in the low light situations. The size of the storage on board is awsome. The only negative is that it will not display the date or time when the data is moved off the camera. The zoom is fantastic,

This review isn't about a new purchase, i've had the hard drive camera for years, and was happy about everything about it. But I was really mad the other day when I took it to a concert (for the first time ever). The music was loud, like I was at a concert, but after a while the camera would shut off. I'd turn it on again but it would take about a minute or so to boot up again cause it kept stopping recording then writing info to the hard drive, then I'd have to repress the record button again but i've already missed about a minute of recording time while it was doing this. And it did this every several minutes or so. Next day I emailed sony and they said it wasn't a problem, these camcorders just do that when a protection circuit for the hard drive kicks in. It never did that before for me but this is the first time I had it around loud music. Boy was I mad, although in the end I bought a smartdisk camera from sony to replace this one cause I was so mad, supposedly they don't have this problem cause there's no moving parts (I actually emailed sony and asked them about it). The camera gave me good performance for years (which is why I bought another sony), it is just this one item I don't like about it, and that's one item i've never read about in sony's literature about this camera cause they don't tell you, but it happens.

Camera very expensive, right at $700.00. Cheap, cheap cheap. seems to be made of plastic. Returned to Wall Street Photo same day it arrived without turning it on. Originally charged me $139.00 restocking fee but as a "one time courtesy" lowered it to $70.00 when I questioned such an exorbitant fee. $70.00 to look at a product is way too high for me when it took me almost a year to save up for this very disappointing purchase. I have Sony's SR-220 that I paid &400.00 for 3 years ago and it is far and away a much better made handy-cam. More money obviously does not guarantee a better product in this market.