The Sony Handycam Dcr-sr300 is an easy to use, reliable hard drive camcorder that won’t steer you wrong (they don’t call it “Handycam” for no reason). The beauty of Hard Drive camcorders is they don’t require any additional media to record, just grab the camera and go and 40 GB is more than enough memory for the casual user. However, they are traditionally a little bulker than their media accepting counterparts and the Handycam Dcr-sr300 is no exception.  

The Sony Handycam Dcr-sr300 has a 2.7 touchscreen LCD display, optical image stabilizer and 10x optical zoom. The optical image stabilizer is particularly useful when using the zoom to its fullest capacity; although it’s not completely shake free, it produces better video quality than digital image stabilizers. Although the Dcr-sr300 has some excellent automatic controls it does lack the manual controls that some advanced users would prefer.

The Sony Handycam Dcr-sr300 does not include a USB port for direct upload. Users found the requirement to use the camcorder dock to upload video easy but a bit cumbersome because of the extra step. However, this was more than made up for with the excellent video and still photo quality.

The Sony Handycam Dcr-sr300 is appropriately named; critics and users alike find this hard drive digital camera great for everyday users that simply want a decent camcorder at a reasonable price.