'You press and hold the center button to select the dial's operation: manual focus, exposure compensation, aperture or shutter, mic level and automatic gain control limit--which caps the signal boosting in low light to minimize visual noise. '
'The new touchscreen system is intuitive and good for beginners, but we did find it a bit frustrating for navigating the camcorder's long menu system.'
'the display is clear and viewable even in quite bright conditions.'
'Ultimately it's slow to scroll through menus and all-too easy to 'select' items when you mean to sweep them.
'
'The camera includes 32GB of built-in flash memory and supports SDHC cards, and it encodes the video as AVCHD files with data rates up to 24 mbps, the format's maximum capability. '
'The camcorder earned an audio score of Good, with noticeably better clarity and volume than rival camcorders offered. '
'impressively deep and professional manual controls'
'It's beautifully done overall, and Canon gets a tip of the hat for this new design, although nothing beats the accuracy of the joystick (it may not be as cool, but it works!). '
'Generally well-designed interface'
'The HF S21 also includes an electronic viewfinder, and it is Canon's only new camcorder to include such feature. '
'The bad: Annoying menu system; no wind filter or meaningful audio controls; relatively big and heavy; expensive; defaults to low resolution, not-full-HD video quality; cumbersome touch-screen interface. '
'The CX550V has a nice array of features including manual focus, aperture and shutter control, and multi-channel audio recording. '
