+ at 649€ it's the most affordable HD camcorder of the bunch, but what really makes it the best package deal is the custom-built Epoque EHS-1000HD UW housing for only 299€, fitting the Xacti like a glove!
+ camcorder (55x90x113mm, 311g) & housing (195x124x186mm, 720g) both are super compact and together weigh just about 1kg!
+ the Xacti can record in Full-HD on standard SD/SDHC cards of up to 8GB, good for 1h25' of 1920x1080i/60fps video
+ decent low light performance judging from Videoaktiv's test shots, thanks to a relatively large 1/2.5" CMOS sensor
+ 4MP photos (more with interpolation, less while filming)
+ 1cm macro!
+ EIS*, while not as good as OIS*, it's better than nothing
+ 285° rotatable 2.7" widescreen TFT LCD
+ microphone & headset mini-jacks (resp. 2.5 & 3.5mm)
+ accessory-shoe
+ pop-up flash for photography
+ IR remote control
+ decent battery life of up to 120' of video or about 340 photos
+ the housing allows full control of the camcorder's settings and clear viewing of the camcorder's LCD!
Of course, everything just ain't peachy and sweet...
− MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 compression, while very space efficient, can not quite match the image quality of HDV, nor its relative ease of editing
− editing actually may pose some serious problems: besides requiring a lot more processing power, not all video players, let alone editing tools, support all the possible compression methods
− the 10x zoom reportedly isn't very smooth
− narrow lens equivalent to a 38mm objective for photos and 50mm objective for videos, but at least x0.4 & x0.7 wide angle conversion lenses are available, besides a x1.6 tele, and more importantly, a x0.56 UW WAL for the housing
− no OIS*
− no video light
− the housing is only rated to -45m, which, though it should be enough, won't let me do any deep dives with it
