It could be said that the GL-1 is among the worst of the best, but that is not a fair way of comparing its features to other camcorders. The GL-1 is top end material, producing similar or equal quality as equipment costing twice as much or more. The lower price mostly reflects the fact that the GL-1 does not have as many features as the more expensive models. It already has more buttons and settings than most of us even want to know exist anyway, so except for professionals and hard-core video fans, we amatures are plenty happy to leave the settings on 'automatic' and simply push the record button.

What really matters is the end result, and viewing a video on your television recorded with the GL-1 looks no different than a video recorded with more expensive models (well, unless you are one of those hard-core types who are very critical, but then too, every camcorder model produces slightly different results, so any differences noticed would be noticed in all). The major end-result difference will be noticed in audio quality. Recording video in a normal room setting is no problem, it comes out great, but in areas with high noise, winds, or too low of sound, the recording is sometimes less than desired. Too loud of noise causes distortion (avoid sitting directly in front of or even behind a rock group's speaker array, even if 75 feet away!), and when the desired sound to be recorded is too quiet, you may hear a slight humming of the camcorder's motor. Many users have solved the problem by purchasing additional audio recording equipment, which is of course an acceptable solution, but one that new owners should be aware of.

Every camera of course has it's good points and bad points, and except for the bad points of not-perfect audio, everything else about the GL-1 is good. Good balance, medium weight, easy loading, good battery life (1 hour with the factory battery, other batteries can be bought that will record for over 3 hours), and the appearance does say you are using high-end equipment.

All things considered, the GL-1 is right about in the middle, giving better results than all known lower-end models, but not quite as good of results as the more expensive models. The Gl-1 is Goldilock's "just right" choice (sorry, I just had to say that).

The Sony camcorder is said to be a little better, close to that of the Canon XL-1, and I did consider it, but at the time I had just overcome a less than favorable experience with a Sony product and I did not want to make another mistake. If you have the money to spare, get the XL-1 just because it's cooler looking, but for fast, easy, quality video, the GL-1 is a great choice.