You've come this far. You just need a little nudge. Buy it. I did all of the research, and am pretty picky. For this price, there is nothing better, or more fun.

I recently purchased this camcorder after our school's arrived and I had a chance to give it a test-drive. I have big hands so I thought some of the buttons would be awkward... not so.

The film looks great, it is easy to use, the still images are of high quality (I put off getting a digital camera to buy this figuring I now have both). You can manually focus when you want to, the lens is of very high quality and there are wide angle and other lens available.

Remember to order a memory stick with some punch and mini-dv cassettes... I live in bush Alaska and it was hard to wait for cassettes and memory to arrive (the 8 memory stick is a joke... 15 pictures or about 30 sec of film).

The only problem I have had with this is sometimes the screen is hard to see in bright light... I'll see if this drives me crazy this summer.

I do not like the program that came with it, but i-movie and i-photo will work great so that is not a problem. It is good that you don't have to use the program that came with it since I had trouble with it. The tech. person from our school found it strangely configured and also opted not to use it.

Bought this camera for the birth of my baby, and it is excellent. Fantastic image quality (better than a DVD) in good lighting, and still very good in poor lighting.
You will notice that color saturation is a little off in poor lighting, that's my only minor complaint.
I compared this camera to just about all cameras in this price range, and you won't find a better one.
Enjoy!

I hesitantly opened up my Sony PC-101 as a X-mas present from my wife, worried that she had not done the research that I would do in buying such a gift. To my surprise, she picked a camcorder that has lived up to all my expectations. The one control on the back of the camcorder determines whether you are using the camcorder for playback, Video or Stills which removes the clutter of buttons that you might find on other cams. The cam fits into a coat pocket, which has allowed me to take several footages of our kids skiing. Connecting the camcorder to my PC was simple. With XP, the USB connection was recognized immediately. I opted to not install Sony's Pixela software and use Microsoft's "Windows Movie Maker" instead with no problems. The only complaints that I have are 1) that the zoom and still capture button are so close and similar that many times when I attempt to zoom, I have found myself taking a still. 2) I can't see the touch screen in daylight (I have to use the viewfinder) and 3) the camera is awkward to hold (maybe the nature of the beast). Bottom line, I have happily taken more video of children in the last 2 months than the last 2 years and have forwarded many 2 minute wav files to family and friends.

I have used this camcorder intermittently for about 1 month. I am very pleased with it. It is small, but cannot fit in a pant's pocket comfortably (unless you are fond of elephantine, droopy pants), but certainly fits in a parka or other jacket pocket. The size is actually a reasonable compromise--any smaller and it would be difficult to operate, depending on your hand size. It would be helpful to go to a store and try the fit and ease of operation. There is a bit of a learning curve with the camera's operation, but it is rapidly mastered. The layout of the controls and the LCD menu are well-done. The latter minimizes the clutter of buttons. The quality in low-light, as has been pointed out, is variable, depending on what settings you use. Turning on lights certainly helps, as do the various options for low light. The quality is acceptable given those conditions, given the price of this camera and its size. If you want improved low-light performance, turn on lights or purchase a lamp for the shoe on the top. This is clearly not an issue for this product alone, but for other brands as well. I debated between this and the more expensive Optura 200MC. There seemed to be less complaints overall about this product., although the other one was certainly well-regarded. Overall, for the price and performance I am very happy with my purchase. This is an excellent value purchase for the average or somewhat picky user, who will delight in its portability and ease of use. Perfectionists will need to spend more money or get a bigger machine, but will nevertheless find something else to focus on...