Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Here is what you need to know before buying this item (sorry about the length of this review, but some things listed here may help you with ANY camera purchase). Before purchasing this camera I read all the reviews. As you can see they range from awful to excellent. Most of the poor ratings have to do with expectations. Points to consider with this camera: 1. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE A HIGH-QUALITY CAMERA! The camera has a fixed-focus (that means not auto). Think disposable photo camera. 2. ALL HANDHELD VIDEO CAMERAS ARE VERY EASY TO BREAK. The screens, in particular, are very easy to snap off and this camera is no exception. In fact, this camera is even easier to break than most, because its sole purpose for construction was cost-reduction to make a cheap camcorder available no matter what the quality. 3. THE TERM "HD" DOESN'T MEAN HIGH-QUALITY PICTURE!!! This is something most people don't seem to know. The resolution of a camera is not the sole factor that determines the quality of a picture. The lens construction (plastic vs. glass, precision-made vs. poorly made, etc.) and the chip size (no matter (the bigger the chip, the more picture data it is picking up for each frame) are two other HUGE factors determining picture quality. Think of your cameras when the lens is dirty, they don't take the best pictures. Well, if the lens is not the best, the picture will not be the best. FINAL REVIEW: I bought this camera for my daughter, who is 5. I didn't want her using my cameras worth thousands of dollars, and they are all too large for her to use anyways. For $50 this was an excellent purchase. She is very gentle on equipment (I don't know if I would have bought it if she was a highly energetic boy), so I don't have to worry about it being broken. It yields fairly decent video quality for the price. Quite a few people mentioned it did not work well in low-light, but that goes for most cameras. Cameras that people think work well in low-light are typically boosting the video signal artificially to get that picture, but you can do that in post-production after you have shot the video. I found that at night with our house's normal lighting, the picture was still fairly decent. I would NEVER use this as my main camera to document family gatherings and such, but for my daughter to get experience shooting and editing video without me having to worry about her breaking something that was really expensive, this is great!!!