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Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Model number: HDR-CX12 | SKU: 8894388

This high-definition camcorder records stunning video of family events and vacations by using Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick PRO Duo media to capture and preserve your memories. Super Steadyshot image stabilization compensates for camera shake, delivering fluid video.

Average Customer Rating:

4.6 out of 5

10 of 11 (91%) customers would recommend this product to a friend.

Customer Reviews for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Review 1 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Love the size!!! 12/18/2008
By Shhh420

Value for Price

5.0 5

Picture Quality

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Features

5.0 5

What's great about it: Everything!!!
What's not so great: It's not mine =(

"I bought this Camcorder for my BF and I love it so much that now I want one!!.. =("

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

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Review 2 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

I can live without this one. 11/07/2008
By kidinme from Irvington, NJ

Value for Price

4.0 5

Picture Quality

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Features

5.0 5

What's great about it: Price, easy to use, great features.
What's not so great: Wish memory card that came with it was bigger.

"This is my first flash camcorder and I love everything about it. I brought this primary to start filming my daughter who is three years old. I know I know time goes by so fast. This was the best camera that I could find in my price range. The next step is to get a good program to start editing my movies."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

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Review 3 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Very impressed with the quality 11/02/2008
By SteveT from Tempe, AZ

Value for Price

4.0 5

Picture Quality

5.0 5

Ease of Use

3.0 5

Features

3.0 5

What's great about it: Quality of the video is outstanding
What's not so great: Battery life is a bit short

"I am very impressed with this camcorder. The video quality is better than I imagined. I am going to get an extended battery the next visit to Best Buy."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 4 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Wonderful product 10/21/2008
By jsje from Sacramento, CA

Value for Price

4.0 5

Picture Quality

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Features

5.0 5

What's great about it: ease of use; quality of pictures and ND videos
What's not so great: NOTHING!

"We love this product! We swore that we would never purchase a video camera but this one is just amazing. We got it because my son started playing soccer and we wanted good action shots but the a video was a plus! It is very light weight and extreamly easy to use. I would highly recommend this to anyone!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 5 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Super Video 10/21/2008
By HighTechDad from Silicon Valley

Value for Price

5.0 5

Picture Quality

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Features

4.0 5

What's great about it: HD for a great price
What's not so great: Not as small as some of the Mini-DV cameras.

"If you're looking to upgrade your video camera, take a look at this camera. The colors are fantastic, the battery life very good and the price so much lower than just 6-12 months ago. I always compare companies when upgrading my equipement and keep coming back to Sony."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 6 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

sony 10/20/2008
By galelinda from Haslett, MI

Value for Price

3.0 5

Picture Quality

4.0 5

Ease of Use

4.0 5

Features

5.0 5

What's great about it: quality worksmanship
What's not so great: some plastic parts that break easily

"I like sony brand because you get quality for your money."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 7 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

a must have 09/29/2008
By mom1smartshopper from pittsburgh

Value for Price

4.0 5

Picture Quality

4.0 5

Ease of Use

4.0 5

Features

4.0 5

What's great about it: light weight , easily learned, very clear
What's not so great: trying to keep it away from family, everyone wants to use it

"touch panel is marvelous
Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick PRO Duo media is wonderful to have both
steady shot image is wonderful for a non proffesional and like wise it help with the best
it also has where you can block beach winds or extra noise
it is so user friendly all of my children can manage it from 5- through 21."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 8 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Good deal 09/15/2008
By vasu from Sunnyvale, CA

Value for Price

4.0 5

Picture Quality

3.0 5

Ease of Use

4.0 5

Features

5.0 5

What's great about it: Awesome in bright sunlight, Beautiful HD picture
What's not so great: Expensive HDMI cable to watch directly on TV

"The colors were extremely vivid. There was no ghosting from moving the camera around at all, and the sound quality was also amazing. It picked up everything in 5.1 surround sound, and the music from the shows sounded great.

Just amazing picture quality, no matter where you're filming.

I'm going to film everything in full HD, and at that rate, there's about 430 minutes of record time.

I wish that the USB cable would power the camera when it's on the hotshoe while charging. That would make it a little nicer.

Also, I wish the video's came out of the camera in a format that it readable by all software. Since it's HD video, I guess that can't be done.

All-in-all, the HDR-SR11 is an amazing camera.
It is highly recommended.

The only real problems that I see are these:
#1: The interface to connect the camera to your TV is a mini-HDMI. Mini-HDMI cables are very expensive (the one we purchased was $80). It's an amazing picture quality when hooked up directly, but you'll pay the price to see it.

#2: There is a possibility that hard disk might get crashed."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 9 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

"five better" than the HDR-CX7 08/25/2008
By AllenInIowa from Des Moines, IA

What's great about it: Compact, "good enough" for still photos, no tapes to buy.
What's not so great: Video not as good as HDV, hefty computer required for editing.

"In April 2008, I purchased a Sony HDR-CX7 (the predecessor so this CX12). Here are my thoughts on the CX12 versus the CX7, then some general notes about the camera.

CX7 could only take three still pictures while in video recording mode. The CX12 appears to let you take more, but there may be some delay between shots since it takes longer to save the photo while video recording. (This may be lessened by using a real high speed Memory Stick Duo card; untested.)

The accessory cover on the top of the CX12 slides in to the unit, instead of popping open. Nicer.

In highest quality mode, the CX12 can record 1920x1080. All lower settings are 1440x just like the CX7 (7 has no 1920 mode).

Stills claim 10 megapixels, though it's not "true" resolution. Still, it's better than the 7.

Bad: The FLASH BUTTON is not on the CX12 -- you have to go to a menu on screen to toggle flash on/off/audio.

Plus: New "sleep mode" button instead, which puts the camera to sleep so it uses about half the power, and can power up and be ready to record in about a second, versus the CX7 taking 5-10 to be ready.

CX12 comes with a 4GB memory card. CX7 came with nothing.

Smile Detection is really cool - it can be set to save still images of people smiling while video recording. I ended up with a dozen photos to download that I did not take just because people in the video smiled. Interesting. In still mode, you can set the camera on a tripod (or counter or whatever) and just stand in front of it, and when you smile it will flash and take the picture. Imagine at an event putting a sign up that says "look here and smile" then you'd have portraits without having to be there to run the camera.

Lag time between still photos was 4-5 seconds on the CX7, but it's about 1 second on the CX12 -- much nicer. Flash time takes about 2-3 between photos, but still faster.

Overall, it is an incrementally nicer camera than the CX7, and considering the CX12 came out at a lower price than the CX7 orignially was, that's good (plus comes with memory). It's a good upgrade for me, because of photo time alone.

General comments...

Since I go through tons of tapes while on vacation or doing projects, I thought having memory sticks would be more convienient. I also thought it would be faster to just copy data from a memory stick rather than import from tape. As it turns out, importing data is faster, but then the computer has to convert the video to an editable format. On my 2+Ghz Dual Core computer, it may even be slower than just importing video from an HDV tape.

However, the convienience totally won me over. Now I use 4GB memory sticks and when I get home, I make a disk image of the stick, then burn that image to DVD. (If I don't fill up all 4GB, I can burn multiple memory stick images to a DVD for backup.) Later, I can just mount that disk image (on my Mac; not sure how PCs do it) and it will show up to iMovie '08 or Final Cut. This means instead of a $5 DV tape, I can now use a .50 DVD-R, and make two copies of all my "raw" video data for future editing. Cheaper, easier to store.

The only downside is that video quality is not quite as good as HDV. For bright daytime shots, I can't really tell, for anything dark (with shadows behind someone) will show banding. Admittedly, this is not on the top quality setting -- but even then, high motion and such will not be as good as HDV. Still, MP3s are not as good as CDs and the convienience factor has won all but high-end audiophiles over."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

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Review 10 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

For me, beat Canon HF10 08/16/2008
By Doowah

What's great about it: Docking Station, One touch recording. MACRO
What's not so great: Memory Sticks are expensive, low light some grain

"I have been researching Flash based Camcorders for some time before settling down for the Sony CX12. I originally bought the CX7 but took back because I didn't realize it was 1440X1080 instead of 1920X1080 so I decided on the CX12. The CX12 is a MUCH better camcorder then CX7.
Docking Station is great! I have it hooked up to my tv through my tv inputs so that I can watch directly from the camcorder. ALso, have it hooked up my PC. So when I dock I can get hooked to both automatically AND it is always charged and ready to go. Very convienent.
Also, love the one touch recording that is on the docking station. If you have a Blu Ray player then this is a great feature. It can record to a normal DVD (not blu ray) but play on your Blu Ray player. The quality looks fantasitc and the same as playing directly from the device. This feature is awesome especially for when my wife needs to use it and save video.
Noticed too the MACRO feature. It is AWESOME and gets really detailed shots. I was amazed and didn't realize it would be able to do that until I played around with it.
The quality of the video is outstanding but, as is with all camcorders, the low light capability is a little weak. Without nightshot, the low light videos do have some grain but not enough to ever change my mind.
I know I made the right choice!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 11 for Sony High-Definition Handycam Camcorder with 2.7" Touch-Panel Color LCD - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Best of the HD Camcorders 08/15/2008
By nbp76 from Sunnyvale

What's great about it: Best Video Quality, Smile Detection, Flash Based, True HD, OIS, 10MP Still Images
What's not so great: Expensive sony Memory Stick

"Feature rich camcorder!
I was deciding between CX12 and Canon HF10/100, and finally bought CX12 as its feature rich. I spent only few hours with this camcorder and I know I have taken the best decision."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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