Sony hi-def camcorder clearance

[Torrey]

I figured this was the best place for this, since I'm not actually selling anything...just passing along good information.

My birthday is coming up and I've had my eye on a Panasonic camcorder for about a month now. My wife and I decided to go ahead and pick one up on Saturday and found that Circuit City had the lowest price, plus we also had a 10%-off coupon. I hadn't even been considering hi-def since they typically can't be had for under $900, but my wife noticed there was a Sony hi-def on clearance for $580. I thought there surely had to be something wrong with it. The salesperson said they were just making room for the newer models. I went home to research it really quick and found that it's actually a very well-respected camera, coming in at #6 on CamcorderInfo's ratings (the Panasonic came in at #17). Anyway, I rushed right back up there and picked one up. The store I went to had 3 more left besides mine. To give you some perspective, Fry's has this camera for $999, Best Buy $950.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass the info along. If you're going to do it though, you might want to call your local Circuit City to make sure they even have them left:

Sony HC-5 Review

[Detonate]

Yeah, that is a nice camcorder for sure.

They are making room for the solid state models that are taking over. Even though the Mini-DV models have slightly better quality.

[Torrey]

Yeah, I really like the looks of the hard-drive models coming out now...it's a shame they're 2x-3x the price of miniDV and still can't beat the quality. I'm sure they'll get around this before too long and tape will go out altogether. I'll have to stock up on tapes and batteries when that happens.