Canon VIXIA HF R800 Portable Video Camera Camcorder with Audio Input(Microphone), 3.0-Inch Touch Panel LCD, Digic DV 4 Image Processor, 57x Advanced Zoom, and Full HD CMOS Sensor, Black

For the money this is a amazing little camcorder. As someone else wrote, "READ THE MANUAL", because there's a ton of features that aren't obvious at first. The manual is 288 pages long and there's no wasted space. You don't need to read the manual to get started but you'll find all sorts of cool features and settings inside. (I printed the manual in double-sided, four pages to a sheet, and it ends up being only 32 pages long (but still readable).The PROS:The R800 is super compact- it would easily fit inside a standard pop can with room to spare- easily fits in a coat pocket.The camcorder is very light weight; no problem to hold it for extended periods of time.The screen is bright and clear the video seems very crisp.The onscreen menus are pretty intuitive and easy to navigate. You won't really need to use them much after the initial setup unless you want to do some fancy stuff or change modes.Quick startup, about 2 to 3 seconds from opening the screen and it's ready.A 64GB SD card will provide more than ~6 hours of recording at 24Mbps, or 34 hours at 4Mbps. For most uses 35Mbps and 24 Mbps will give you plenty of detail in the video. (35, 24, and 17Mbps record at 1920x1080 resolution, 4Mbps records at 1280x720).You can take still images (even while recording video) and a 64Gb SD card will let you store about 97,600 images at 1280x720. That's right: NINETY-SEVEN THOUSAND IMAGES!! (Not to be morbid, but at my age that could easily be a lifetime supply for me. lol)Slow-motion and time-lapse recording are built in, as are some basic fades and transitions. There are also some fancier photo effects (graphics, stamps, etc).The zoom is smooth and very controllable and the zoom speed is adjustable. I wish the zoom rocker-control went front-to-back instead of side-to-side. A front-to-back zoom control is much more intuitive than side-to-side. Shame on you, Canon, you're supposed to know something about how to design cameras. Not a deal-breaker, but a minor complaint.Face detection and tracking are built in. That may or may not be useful to you.The camera can convert video clips into time-lapse video (after they're taken). That's pretty cool.The camcorder can also take short video clips of variable length (e.g. take a 3-second clip with each button press).You can save parts of the video as still images. Also very handy. (page 15 in the manual)Framing assistance is a built-in feature. Check out what it does in the manual (page 59 in the manual)There's a built-in "lock video" feature to prevent anyone from deleting a video (think kids, cops, etc).The camcorder also has an optional 3-second "pre-record" feature that can capture 3 seconds of video *before* you press the record button. I suspect that will come in very handy.It records stereo sound, although the two microphones are only about an inch apart so I'm not sure how much actual left/right separation there will be.The built in lens shield (a mechanical shutter) is a good feature. The shutter is opened and closed with a small lever near the front of the camera. (I'll be attaching UV filter which will also act as a lens protector, but having one built in is good. (You always want to have something between the lens and the outside world. It keeps dust, water, bugs, etc off the lens and prevent scratches. You can either let the lens get scratched (which means a lot of time and $$$$ to fix) or let an inexpensive filter take the hit (~$20 to replace with a brand new one).The CONS:I sometimes find the record button a little difficult to reach depending upon how I hold it, but this is a minor issue.You cannot set what to use as the default memory to record to. Some of the Vixias allow you to set this, but not the R800.There's no WiFi capability so you can't stream to the internet (e.g. Bambuser, Camfrog, UStream, etc). The lack of WiFi capability is a real deficit.This camcorder is not meant for low light recording, but as long as there's some light you'll probably get usable video. If in doubt, use a lamp to help illuminate the scene.The LCD screen sensitivity could be a little better, but that's a personal preference; you may find it's just fine.The onscreen buttons could also be a little bigger in my opinion but you can use the eraser end of a pencil to tap stuff if you have big fingers or are wearing gloves.The various input/output ports (mic, USB, HDMI, etc) can only be used with the screen open; it would have been great if they could have placed them so they were accessible without having to open the screen. (Not really a big deal, but worth mentioning.)It can take a looooooooong time to charge the battery- almost 8 hours for the BP-727 battery, about 5.5 hours for the BP-718. Might wanna get an extra battery or two. The Canon manual says that before using the camera the first time, you should fully charge the battery and then let it run all the way down until it's dead.The batteries cost about $25 to $50 each depending on where you get them. That's not exorbitant but it's not cheap, either. (I've seen them as low as $15 apiece but who knows if they're any good.) Make sure you get batteries marked as "Decoded" or you won't get the "time remaining" display.)It's unclear if you can run power the camcorder from a powerbank gadget or not, and I'm hesitant to try it for fear of zorching the camera.With all that said, there's not much to complain about. I think this is an amazing little gadget for the price. If it broke, I'd probably go right out and get another one. (I got mine for $160 during Black Friday, but even at the usual price of $199 it's still an excellent deal in my opinion.) Finally, READ THE MANUAL- it's time well spent.

Updated Review 6/5/2017: I updated my review from 2 stars as I had initiated a return, but the shipping didn't work for me. I decided to cancel the return and try to work on the issue of extremely long transfer times.Seriously, if you're going to buy this camera, make sure you have a card reader. Transferring 10 GB of footage from the camera will take about 25 minutes, LONGER if you use the Cannon transfer software. I bought an external USB 3 card reader, and 10GB file transfers now take about 90 seconds.I had also previously complained about not having AVCHD recording for smaller file sizes. However, the Highest quality MP4 60p recording makes it so much easier to Edit in Sony Vegas. Rendering times are faster than real-time. a 30 minute video will render in about 16 minutes in Vegas.I use these for shooting pinball video's with a 2 camera setup, which I upload to YouTube at a very high quality. I edit these in Vegas, as mentioned, and they come out stunning and with the 2 videos combined, Picture in picture, it takes close to the actual amount of time to render. Again, a 30 minute video will render in about 34 minutes, keeping the MP4 settings as close to the original footage specs as possible. With the AVCHD files from my other cameras, it took more than twice as long to render - about an hour for a 30 minute video. Plus, this MP4 format uses my Intel graphics chip to aid in rendering.I previously mentioned the indoor quality was not so great, but a few lighting adjustments and the picture is perfectly fine.I still wish that you could record 60p at lower bitrates. These files takes up a TON of space. However, with being able to transfer the files much faster, this isn't so much of an issue.Again, if you want 60p recording, you have to use the highest setting of 35Mbps recording. This will only allow a maximum of 16 minutes and a few seconds, after which a new file is created. They appear as 1 video in the camera, but if transferring to a computer, there will be multiple files that have to be edited together. While the video is seamless, there will be a slight glitch in the audio track.One other thing, as far as audio, it's stereo only. No 5.1 surround. But I can live with that.Battery life is where this camera really shines. The battery lasts significantly longer than my previous cameras. Kudos to Cannon for including a larger battery in the box, and a charging unit with a long enough cord so I can record while using the charger.I'm glad I decided to give this camera second chance, and that I got the transfer issues sorted out.