James Murray has posted his review of the Canon ZR700 digital camcorder over at CamcorderInfo. Looks like the ZR700 is a good choice, but not necessarily the best one.
The Canon ZR700 is a good value at $399, of that there is no doubt. But is it the best value on the market? The ZR500 has it beat by $100, and it comes with a microphone jack. The ZR700. however, has analog input. The question you have to ask yourself there is, what is more important to for you to input, new audio or old audio and video? A step up to the Elura 100 will buy you both at the same price as the $399, but the enclosed battery has its own problems.
The low light score performance is great compared to last year’s models, and the new joystick handling is a marked improvement over the jog dial. In the end, this a great buy, and the back-mounted battery makes it a smarter buy than the Elura 100. For those looking at entry-level cameras, this is the top of Canon’s entry-level line, and a good choice.
We purchased the CANON zr700 and are very dissatisfied. The biggest problem is the lousy audio. You can hear the camera motor over any other sounds and the problem worsens if the camera is being used hand-held rather than on a tripod. Since there is no external microphone jack, (something Canon neglects to mention in the ads), you cannot work around the built-in microphone. Bad audio has been a chronic problem with Canon. We have two other cameras, (zr45 and zr70) with similar problems, though the zr700 is far worse. We like the zoom, but are also not pleased with the picture quality; the camera has a hard time focusing no matter what the lighting conditions and the older models we have are much better. Overall we’d say this new camera is not an improvement over previous models and we’re returning it ASAP.
I’ve heard some people talk about the audio problem as well. Apparently the tape whine is being picked up way too much by the onboard microphone. I haven’t heard it myself, yet, but it sounds like it might be a major fluke that Canon missed/ignored.