The HDC-TM700 is the much anticipated new flagship camcorder from Panasonic, and it is also the replacement model for last year's award-winning HDC-TM300. With the HDC-TM700, Panasonic has created a camcorder with seemingly no major weaknesses—and plenty of impressive features to boot. First and foremost is the new 1080/60p record mode, which produced stunningly-sharp video and rendered excellent motion in our performance testing. The most enticing aspect of the HDC-TM700, however, may be its surprisingly low price tag of $999. Frankly, we are shocked that one of the best consumer camcorders we've ever reviewed is available for such a bargain.

From the look of it, the HDC-TM700 doesn't appear all that different than last year's HDC-TM300. Upon closer inspection, though, you'll notice the TM700 features a much larger lens, a bigger LCD, and a slightly smaller body than its predecessor. The new lens is probably the most impressive of these new features, as it allows the TM700 to capture video at a wide angle previously only attainable with professional or prosumer camcorders. The camcorder also ships with a small lens hood that may help keep glare off the lens in certain shooting situations. Like the HDC-TM300 before it, the HDC-TM700 contains 32GB of built-in flash memory as well as a memory card slot. The memory card slot on the camcorder is not only compatible with SD/SDHC cards, but it also works with SDXC memory cards up to 64GB in size.

The LCD size increase is, perhaps, the most disappointing upgrade on the HDC-TM700. Panasonic only bumped up the screen size to 3 inches (up from 2.7 inches), which makes it smaller than the screens featured on new flagship models from Sony, Canon, and Samsung (all of which have 3.5-inch screens). If you don't like using the LCD to shoot video, the HDC-TM700 does have an electronic viewfinder that extends out from the camcorder by roughly an inch. The viewfinder isn't great, but it's about as good as you'll find on a consumer camcorder.

The HDC-TM700 is one of the most comfortable and portable flagship models on the market. Its smooth and ergonomic right-side design makes the camcorder a pleasure to hold in your palm. Panasonic's hand strap isn't as large as what you'd find on a Canon or Sony camcorder, but we found it provided adequate support at all times. The TM700's optical image stabilization system also did an exceptional job in our test, so it should be able to compensate for any shaky hand-held shooting done with the camcorder.

One of the primary features on Panasonic's flagship camcorders is the large lens ring that is used for making adjustments to manual controls. The lens ring on the HDC-TM700 is no different than the one featured on the HDC-TM300, but Panasonic did make a very simple improvement. You can now use the lens ring to make adjustments to shutter speed, aperture, and focus while the LCD panel is opened (on previous models this was not an option). The touchscreen LCD is still used to access menus and turn on a variety of controls, but all of the most important manual features can be set using the lens ring.

The only major drawback of the HDC-TM700 is the compatibility issues surrounding the camcorder's 1080/60p recording. Most editing programs will not be able to recognize the 60p footage (at least not yet). You can, however, use Panasonic's provided software to view 1080/60p clips on a computer (the software is PC only). This compatibility issue won't be a problem if you plan on playing back any recorded 1080/60p clips directly from the HDC-TM700 itself, but if you're the type of person who likes to edit and tinker with your videos, then you may want to avoid using the camcorder's 60p setting.
 
Performance (read in-depth lab performance at CamcorderInfo.com)
The HDC-TM700 performed like a champ in all of our video tests. We really can't give the camcorder enough praise—it had excellent color accuracy, extremely sharp video, and strong low light capabilities. The TM700's 1080/60p mode definitely produced the best image quality, but we were also happy with the camcorder's results in its 1080/60i mode as well.

The only area where the camcorder didn't blow us away was in our still image testing... but that's not really a big deal. The HDC-TM700 is meant to record high-quality HD video; its photo mode is really just an afterthought.

Comparisons (read in-depth comparisons at CamcorderInfo.com)
With its low price tag ($999 MSRP) and exceptional video performance, the HDC-TM700 is one of the most impressive camcorders to come along in a while. Simply put, it is a fantastic camcorder that is a much-improved upgrade over last year's HDC-TM300 (which won our award for camcorder of the year in 2009). To be fair, there are a number of flagship models from other manufacturers that we have yet to review in 2010, but we are confident the HDC-TM700 will remain as one of the best—if not the best—consumer camcorders of the year.

Right now, the most direct comparison we have for the HDC-TM700 is the Canon HF S21. The HF S21 did well in our performance testing, but it was eclipsed by the TM700 in nearly every category. Because of this, we can't offer much of a reason that you should go with the Canon over the Panasonic. The HF S21 is also bulkier, less comfortable to hold, and costs roughly $400 more than the HDC-TM700.