This is a replacement for my 10 year old Panasonic camcorder so the first thing I noticed is this thing is SMALL, but they are all pretty small compared to my old camcorder. Without going into too much detail I'll just note the things I found much better than I expected and the couple things I am a little disappointed in. I don't have experience with any other new camcorders so I can't say this one is better or worse than any of the other new models.

Pleasantly surprised:
- The image stabilization feature is very very good.
- The video picture quality is impressive.
- The battery lasts longer than it is suppose to (manual says 50 minutes but I get double that).
- The software that comes with it is certainly good enough for me and is easy to use. It allows you to arrange your clips into a video and write it to a standard DVD in standard definition, to a standard DVD in high definition or to a blu-ray disc. You can delete portions of clips, add transitions between clips, add text to a clip (first clip only) and build a menu screen.

Things that are a bit of a disappointment:
- The automatic white balance isn't the greatest. Within a single lighting environment and a single shot the auto white balance will vary from a little too yellow, to a little too blue to just right. I've given up on auto white balance and now use manual white balance. Manual mode is a bit of a hassle but worth it to avoid the white balance swings the automatic setting produces.
- The wind cut filter can't be turned off in auto mode. This isn't a big deal to me now that I use manual mode (because of my white balance complaint) but if I did want to use auto mode there are times you need to have the wind cut filter off or the sound will get totally messed up (like when an audience is clapping along to a song).
- Low light recording is fairly noisy. It isn't horrible. I decided it is acceptable for my use but my 10 year old camcorder did better in low light.

Everything else about the camcorder is about what I expected. It's easy to use, nice zoom range, still camera mode can't compete with a real still camera but that shouldn't come as a big surprise. Overall a very nice camcorder for the money. Is it the best camcorder for the money? I have no idea, but I can say I'm happy with it and it is capable of producing very nice video with just a little effort as long a there is sufficient light.

UPDATE - one month later: I've had the camcorder for over a month and have shot 10+ hours of video with it. I'm still impressed with this little camcorder. It can produce some beautiful video. I'd give it 5 stars if the white balance worked a little better. I still stand by my original comments.

One software feature I discovered and like a lot is the ability to capture a still photo from the video. I'm sure all video software has this feature but it is new to me. With the still capture feature you can get a 3.6 inch x 6.4 inch 300dpi jpg from the video. The software allows you to look at the video frame by frame so you can capture a still picture at just the right moment. This is very nice for making small snapshot photos, particularly of fast action subjects. One maddening thing about most still cameras is shutter lag (the delay from the time you push the button to the time the picture is taken). Many times great shots are missed because of that delay but by capturing still images from the video you can always get the shot at just the right moment! It's a fun feature.

UPDATE #2 - 2 months later: I've shot over 20 hours of video with this camcorder now and I'm still very happy with it. I purchased a sandisk 16GB card (holds about 2 hours of video) and I'm keeping an eye out for a Vw-VBK360 extra battery for use on vacations. The Vw-VBK180 battery that comes with the camera lasts at least 100 minutes of actual use yet is only suppose to last 50 minutes. I don't know why I'm getting so much time out of it! I do shut off the camera between shots (by closing the viewing door) but doesn't everybody? Seems like a natural thing to do.

I still use manual mode for white balance. I'm much happier with the results using manual white balance rather than automatic white balance. The auto white balance in my old camcorder as well as the white balance in my daughter's little Flip camcorder works fine but not in this new camcorder. It's my only real complaint.

I did a little test to compare my old camcorder with the new camcorder in low light conditions. The new camcorder produces a fairly noisy video in relatively low light but my old camcorder produces a pretty nice video under the same low light conditions. I'm not talking very dark - living room, in the evening, lit with 2 floor lamps. But I found a flaw in my test! What I discovered is both camcorders produce fairly good video in STANDARD DEFINITION (note: the new camcorder only records in HD but the software provided with the camcorder allows you to convert it to standard definition). It is only in HIGH DEFINITION that the video from the new camcorder is noisy. Since my old camcorder only records in standard definition it wasn't fair for me to compare my old camcorder standard definition video with my new camcorder high definition video. So for what it's worth, my new and old camcorders produce about the same quality standard definition video in low light conditions. Maybe you have to step up to a more expensive camcorder to get low noise, high definition video.

I've got to say, even though low light standard definition video looks better than low light high definition video, once you've viewed high definition video in normal lighting conditions you'll never want to go back to standard definition ever again. The difference is remarkable!

UPDATE #3 - 3 months later: I continue to use this camcorder a lot and am still very happy with it. There are a few things I'd change if I could but nothing too serious. Manual focus is painful but I've only used that once. Getting to the backlight compensation mode is quite painful and I wish there was a button on the camcorder that put the camcorder in backlight mode like my old camcorder has but again, not the end of the world.

I just responded to a very good question in the COMMENTS SECTION about manually setting the white balance that I didn't mention earlier that is very important: When you manually set the white balance the setting DOES stay at whatever you set it at when you turn off the camcorder. In other words, the white balance setting you select "sticks", which is a very good thing! If I had to manually reset the white balance setting every time I shut the camcorder off I would not have kept this camcorder. Fortunately that is not the case. You can set the white balance to whatever you need and you only need to change the setting when your lighting conditions change.

UPDATE #4 - 4 months later: I've only used the camcorder a couple of hours this past month and don't have anything new to add. This will be my last update to my review unless I discover something noteworthy. All, in all, it's a very nice camcorder!

Addendum to update #4 - On 11/5/10 I broke my camcorder. It was entirely my fault. I hit the outer edge/end of the LCD screen quite hard on a hard object and the screen is now blank. The camcorder still works but the LCD screen is history. Can't blame the camcorder though. To give you an idea of what I really think of the HDC-SD60K, I'm replacing my broken HDC-SD60K with a new HDC-SD60K. I just ordered it from Amazon (again) and was pleasantly surprised to learn the price has dropped 25% from what I paid a little over 4 months ago! It's a nice camcorder and I thought is was a good buy when I bought it 4 months ago but at it's current price it's a no-brainer!

Kudos to Amazon! I ordered another HDC-SD60K camcorder (to replace the one I broke on 11/5) on Saturday 11/6 and it was delivered Friday 11/12 and that was using the super saver free shipping option!!!

I thought I'd see if the automatic white balance works any better in my new HDC-SD60K camcorder compared to what I'd experience in my old HDC-SD60K. You never know, maybe my old one was defective or maybe Panasonic tweaked the HDC-SD60K in the past 4 months to improve the way the auto white balance works. So I shot some video in IA mode, inside and out. Nope. No different than my original HDC-SD60. The picture changes tint within a single shot when panning or zooming as the camcorder continually adjusts the automatic white balance filter based on what is in the image at any particular moment. Oh well, I've gotten use to manual mode anyway and the results are far better.

UPDATE #5 - 6 months later: I just purchased a Pioneer BDR-206 blu-ray burner for my computer (from Amazon of course!) and can now report the software that comes with this camcorder works nicely burning blu-ray discs. Going with blu-ray also makes life a little easier. I take quite a bit of video and I wasn't keeping up with burning DVDs of all the video I'd taken. Being able to put about 2-1/2 hours of video on a single blu-ray disc sure is a lot easier then making a bunch of HD DVDs!

Over 500 people have found my review helpful! That's great! I see I missed the boat for 3 people though. Sorry. If there is something specific you need to know you're welcome to ask me in the COMMENT section. I certainly am no expert but I'll try to answer any questions I can.

UPDATE #6 - 8 months later: I'm still using this camcorder a lot! A couple people have discovered a problem with this camcorder that I was unaware of. When recording in a quiet environment the noise the autofocus motor makes is clearly recorded on your video. I tested it myself with my camcorder and it is true. Maybe like me, most people video things where the sounds they record overwhelm the auto-focus motor noise. Except for the test video I made in a quiet environment to confirm the existence of this problem I have not noticed the autofocus motor noise in any of my videos but buyer beware - there is a motor noise when the camcorder focuses and it does get recorded!

UPDATE #7 - It's now April. I've lost count of the months! Since I mostly use this camcorder to record my daughter who is a member of a fiddle group I decided it'd be interesting to have a second camcorder on a tripod recording at a different angle than what I'm recording with the camcorder I'm handholding. So I did some experimenting with my broken camcorder, the one with the blank lcd screen (see addendum to update #4) and discovered if I connect a tv to the camcorder I can use the tv as a view screen! So I purchased a 7" portable lcd tv from Amazon for $50 and now I can splice together shots from the two camcorders making a pretty interesting video! Granted, the camcorder with the broken lcd screen is not the easiest thing to use, you have to know where to tap the blank lcd screen to set the white balance for example, but it works! Bottom line, I'm still having fun! If you search on YouTube for "Fayette Opera House" and look for the video of Orange Blossom Special you'll find one of my early attempts using two of these hdc-sd60k camcorders and splicing the video together. I just use the software that came with the camcorder. Nothing fancy and fairly easy to do. Anyway, these are nice camcorders, even though they are "last years models" now.

UPDATE #8 - A little over a year. Use the camcorder at least once a week recording the fiddle group my daughter is in. I use the camcorder inside, under all kinds of lighting conditions as well as outside. I tried turning the automatic gain control off to see how that affected sound. It is suppose to give a more "natural" sound and if you know how AGC works it makes sense that it could produce better sound, not that I have complaints with the sound with AGC on except I get clipping once in a while usually when an audience is applauding. I've only tried it once and it wasn't good! Need to experiment with that some more. It's remarkable a camcorder in this price range offers this level of sound control. Other than the terrible automatic white balance (I carry a white piece of typing paper wherever I go to set the white balance manually, which works great) I'm still VERY happy with this camcorder after using it a lot for a little over a year. No regrets with this purchase!

UPDATE #9 - 17 months later. Still use it a lot and it's still going strong. No problems at all (other than the auto white balance, but manual works great). There have been occasions when I wish it had an external microphone jack but other than that, I have no regrets at all! Even the camcorder with the broken LCD screen works great (I use a $50 external LCD screen connected to the camcorder as the view screen) as a tripod only camcorder. Happy!

I hope you found this information useful. I'd like to thank the people who took the time to write camcorder reviews when I was researching them. It's very helpful to get insights from end-users. I'm glad I bought the camcorder that I did and I'm even happier that I decided to upgrade from my standard definition camcorder to an eye-popping high definition camcorder!