'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'
'Smart Auto essentially enables low light mode in poor illumination, although a macro mode will also appear when appropriate.'
'Because of the lens placement, you don't have the hold the camcorder up to your face as you do with traditional camcorders, so there's less strain on your arm. '
'capacious SD/SDHC flash storage cards'
'As is usually the case nowadays, video can be edited on the camera and uploaded directly to YouTube -- perfect for capturing those embarrassing v-blogs before you sober up and your social filter kicks in.'
'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. '
