Samsung HMX-H300BP review

The camcorder has optical image stabilisation built in, and this works fine at moderate zoom levels. Once you get near the maximum zoom range, the camcorder seems to have trouble distinguishing between deliberate and unintentional movements, which can lead to artificial movements in the video as the camcorder compensates. It’s not as accomplished as Panasonic’s image stabilisation, but works well enough at reasonable zoom levels and when you’re walking around.

There are a few manual controls to let you tweak the footage; you can adjust aperture, shutter speed and white balance, and there are some presets for effects such as black and white, sepia and negative. You access most controls via the touchscreen, and the menus are fairly well laid out. You can choose between standard definition, 720p and 1080i video. At the maximum 1080i resolution and Super Fine quality you’ll fit over two hours of video on a £12 16GB SDHC card, so we doubt most people will need to reduce the quality.

Samsung’s HMX-H300BP produces reasonable footage in daylight and is particularly good in low light. Its video quality is better than that of Panasonic’s similarly-priced HDC-SD80, which means its main rival is Samsung’s own HMX-Q10, which has essentially identical video quality and is around £45 cheaper. If you need the HMX-H300BP’s larger zoom it’s the camcorder to buy, but otherwise you could save some money and buy the HMX-Q10 with its useful ambidextrous features.