2009 2010 Cars and Computer Reviews

There are only two reasons to buy the Sanyo Xacti VPC-WH1, but they're good reasons: It's inexpensive ($400 as of 9/25/09), and it's waterproof. For some people, those two factors will offset the camera's mediocre image quality.

Compared with footage from the best 1080p HD camcorders, the VPC-WH1's 720p HD video (at 30 frames per second) exhibits noticeably--but not disastrously--reduced resolution, sharpness, color accuracy, and motion. The VPC-WH1's overall video image quality is middling. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the camera's 1.1-megapixel still images, which suffer from low resolution, inaccurate exposure, and noticeable image distortion.

Bought this camera for our vacation in Cuba. This is a GOOD camera! Not great but good. My only complaint would be that it is difficult to see the screen when filming underwater. You almost have to guest where the subject is. I took it snorkling and managed to get some great videos. the IS was good underwater but when using it out of the water it’s not that great after 10x zoom. For the price I paid for it, it was a good investment. As for Eliza, I would take it back to the store where you bought it and return or exchange the camera. It may have be that the screws that seal the body were just not tight enough. Or the seals were defective.

First off, this VPC-WH1 shoots 1280×720 HD video at 30fps. That means all your underwater video is going to look very good (compared to what’s out there at this level) on both Vimeo and YouTube–providing you have great lighting to accompany you. The VPC-WH1 does not have a video light of any sort, so that means that some of your images may turn out a bit noisy. In this case, Sanyo’s 3D DNR image noise reduction technology won’t be able to help you because the image becomes softer: meaning that whatever you shoot underwater in theory will look even softer than it already might. Additionally, the 2.5-inch LCD (not very high resolution) might not be able to help you out very well. Once again though, we haven’t tried it yet, but I’d recommend finding good lighting.