The miracle failed to materialize

Addendum dated June 4, 2011:
I need to change my vote after I received the second HX9V. This has, amazingly, better image quality and shows also in the automatic mode less compression errors. Possibly the first cam was an outlier or had a different firmware. Give therefore to the photo-quality 3.5 now and for Video 4.5 for a total of 4 star.

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Now it is finally here and the disappointment is great. I did not believe that I have to give the Vorrezensenten in many parts right. I think there is hardly a camera in this price range that has such a poor photo quality. A spontaneous compared to a similarly expensive Samsung EX1 falls catastrophic for Sony.

OK, the comparison is not entirely fair, the Samsung belongs to another quality class, has a larger sensor is not crammed with so many pixels, but hardly Zoom and HD Video no. And who needs the photos only for the Internet, can live with the quality of Sony. But it also reaches a cheap clippers.

Then there is the excellent video function. And the really good quality but unfortunately only partially usable. With the high frame rate of 50p (frames) many devices can not cope and the processing is a problem for average PCs. The 50i / 25 (interlaced) in turn can also use the cheaper Sony Cams and playback is no longer correct liquid. The currently most reasonable variant with 30p remains unfortunately the NTSC version of the camera subject.

On request, if a firmware update also make available the European users much more usable 30/60 Video variant was told that this was not planned.

What remains is a great toy with a lot of great features that quickly lose their appeal due to the limited usability and lack of BQ.