- home
- reviews
- news
- downloads
- cnet tv
On TechRepublic: Who made the worst PC ever?
- log in
- join CNET
- welcome,
- my profile
- log out

Get three services for $100/mo

Panasonic HDC-SD9

More on this product: review; user reviews; specifications; compare; shop

Share
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
- Reddit
- Facebook
E-mail
Print

CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
Detailed editors' rating

Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 6 reviews
See all user reviews

Product summary

The good: Compact and lightweight; saturated colors.

The bad The bad: Moderate to low-light videos look cloudy; some awkward design choices; smallish LCD with terrible color reproduction; awful bundled software.

The bottom line: Despite its trio of CCDs, the video quality and performance of the Panasonic HDC-SD9 are a bit too inconsistent.

Specifications: Video input type: Camcorder; Optical zoom: 10 x; Media type: Flash card See full specs

Price range: $499.97 - $799.99

CNET editors' review

Reviewed by: Lori Grunin
Reviewed on: 03/17/2008
Updated on:05/06/2008
Released on: 01/09/2008

Editor's note 5/6/08: I've revised the bottom line and software comments after revisiting the issue of video-editing problems. These do not affect the ratings, since I did not factor software problems into the original ratings.

With its eye-catching, compact body and relatively low price, the Panasonic HDC-SD9 seems to be quite an attractive buy for a flash-based AVCHD camcorder. At 11.7 ounces with battery and SD card and only 3.6 inches long, it's certainly one of the smallest and lightest full-size camcorders we've ever tested, and is pretty comfortable to shoot. The zoom switch feels responsive, and all the controls seem logically placed and fluid to operate. Many of the buttons, especially the face detection and Pre-rec (for 3-second pre-recording) are a tad small, but that's to be expected on a device this size.

As with other compact camcorders, only a few controls remain under your right thumb: zoom, photo, capture/playback/power, and recording start/stop.

All the rest of the controls sit in the LCD enclosure. The joystick is in an especially odd place which requires some getting used to; for instance, pressing the joystick towards you produces the same result as moving it to the right in a traditional orientation, while pressing it away will navigate to the left. I was relatively comfortable with this design, but our Lab tech disliked it.

However, Panasonic made a few irritating design choices, especially with regard to the battery. To remove it, you have to open the LCD cover; that's fine, as long as you don't use Quick Start mode, which turns the power on when you open the door. In that circumstance, when you open the LCD to remove the battery--as you must to charge it, since you can't charge the battery in-camera--the camcorder naturally turns on, and removing the battery at that point leaves the electronic lens cover open. Furthermore, to download the files to your computer you must plug in the AC adapter (a pretty common requirement), but since the connector is in the battery compartment you have to remove the battery to do so.

Furthermore, Panasonic offers an optional Shooting Guide which prompts you with "Camera panning too fast," "Use Intelligent Contrast," "Use O.I.S.," and "Use Low Light Mode" messages. Unfortunately, each of these messages takes up a huge chunk of the already too-crowded 2.7-inch LCD, blocking your view of the scene entirely. In the case of contrast and panning, the messages seem to appear more frequently than not.

See more CNET content tagged:: Panasonic,; camcorder,; battery,; LCD,; joystick

User reviews

Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 6 reviews
My rating: 0 stars Write review

Showing 3 of 6 user reviewsSee all 6 user reviews
4.0 stars

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful

"A Gread AVCHD Cam."

by jepz422864 on April 27, 2008

read more
4.5 stars

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful

"Great video and sound quality, easy to use,"

by drj444 on March 23, 2008

read more
2.5 stars

"Wait for the next release of AVCHD products"

by hdnut on August 31, 2008

read more
See all 6 user reviews Write review

Submit your review

Panasonic HDC-SD9

1. Rate this product:: (Mouse over the stars to rate this product and click to set your rating.)
2. One-line summary:(Summarize your review in one line. 10 characters minimum; required.): 0 of 55 characters
3. Pros:(Tell us what you like about this product. 10 characters minimum; required.): 0 of 250 characters
4. Cons:(Tell us what you don't like about this product. 10 characters minimum; required.): 0 of 250 characters
Bottom-line summary:(Explain to us in detail why you like or dislike the product, focusing your comments on the product's features and functionality, and your experience using the product. This field is optional.): 0 of 5000 characters; Submit

Where to buy

Panasonic HDC-SD9: $499.97 - $799.99

store	price	in stock?	rating
	$526.25	Yes
	$799.99	Yes
	$649.99	Yes
	$699.99	Yes
	$659.99	Yes

see prices from 13 stores

Reviews from around the Web

macworld.co.uk

Editors' rating: 80

Summary: While it seems like a good mid-range option, performance in low light is not as good as the others, with overall picture quality not as sharp. Auto white balance performance is also variable, and its audio is not quite as 'full' sounding as we'd like. It

Read full review
laptopmag.com

Editors' rating: 40

Summary: For $689, the SD9's performance and ease of use are disappointing. The bundled software could improve with a downloadable update, but there's no fixing the design flaws and video performance. Panasonic's brilliant prosumer cameras (like the VariCam series

Read full review