And lo and behold, when we got it, it worked exactly as we thought and we got some great memories.

But then the lens cap broke. And it started to jam tapes regularly. And put dots and speckles into some recordings. And after 3 months of use my battery wouldn't recharge anymore. I brought it in for a repair and a replacement lens cap/battery, but 9 months later all 3 problems happened again.

The first repair was under warranty, I paid for the 2nd one. But last month was really it. My sister, who lives 400 miles away from me, had twins around the same time our son was born and we went up to visit them for their 2nd birthday. My wife took (or I should say tried to take) an hour of video of me playing with all 3 boys and another 2 hours of video of all of us going to the zoo together. Well, you know what, nothing came out, because THE TAPE WAS JAMMED AGAIN! Only this time, the camcorder did not give me any message warning me of this during her attempted recording, so we thought all was fine.

So today, 2 weeks before our 2nd child is due, I threw in the towel and bought a Samsung DV camcorder. Cest la vie....I have 2 Sharp TV's that work great (one is almost 20 years old!) so I don't know if I simply got a "lemon" or if their camcorder standards are just lax compared to their other electronics.

Very Good Buy (Rating: 5.00)
Review : I am very pleased with my Sharp VLAH50U camcorder. It had many more features than advertised and the price was the best I could find anywhere with the free shipping. It shipped the next day and arrived in good condition. This is my first camcorder and I am looking forward to using it this Christmas.

It's Great! (Rating: 5.00)
Review : This is my first camcorder. At this price I had no choice but to finally break down and buy one. The camcorder is small and lightweight. Instructions are simple. After charging the battery I was shooting right away. The picture quality is outstanding, the auto focus works great. The zoom is great too, providing you don't zoom in too fast...it takes a second or two to catch up to you. I love how easily it connects to my TV set for easy viewing on a big screen. I'm getting ready to go on vacation and looking forward to taking some great footage without lugging around something big and heavy.