Panasonic's HDC-TM10 is a compact, 1080p camcorder with a few extra features. The biggest claim to fame, such as it is, is that the TM10 (along with its nearly-identical cousin the HDC-SD10) is the world's lightest AVCHD FullHD camcorder. At least, that's what the press release says. At eight ounces, they should be more than light enough for you regardless of whether or not the claim is true.

Other features are competitive with other camcorders in this class: a touchscreen LCD, automatic scene selection, 16x optical zoom, image stabilization, and AF tracking. The camcorder records its videos either to internal flash memory, or to SD or SDHC cards. The cheaper SD10 model has no internal storage.

The TM10 also has a feature called "pre-rec." When the feature is active, the camcorder is always recording, keeping a buffer of three seconds of video at all times. Any time you press the record button, it tacks the preceding three seconds on at the beginning, so if you hit record too late, you don't miss an important moment. You can probably guess that this will reduce battery life, but it could keep your storage from getting filled up too quickly.

You can pick one up in the U.S. as of September of 2009 for $599.95.