Sanyo Xacti E1 Waterproof Camcorder Review

Mark Montgomery
August 2007

We have seen many camcorders come through our doors, but we haven't had good old-fashioned fun like this for a while. Our Sanyo Xacti E1 review allowed us to do something that was exciting - splash and play in creeks and pools and capture every moment on video. Heck! We even dropped it in a fish bowl. We did all this without damaging the device. The Sanyo Xacti E1 waterproof camcorder review was indeed refreshing.

The Sanyo Xacti E1 waterproof camcorder is a simple, sleek AVC MPEG-4 camcorder made for water environments, with the ability to be submerged to a depth of 5 feet for up to 60 minutes. We couldn't hold our breath that long, so we'll take Sanyo's word for it. We did manage, however, to fill up several afternoons at various pools and creeks. Naturally, its design seals out water, yet the Xacti E1 still includes external buttons to make the function of the camcorder fairly simple. A flip-out 2.5" LCD display remains bright, even out in the sun and slightly murky waters. You won't believe what we swam through.

The Xacti E1 is very lightweight and easy to handle. This is very important, as you wouldn't want to be towing an anchor if you were snorkeling with this MPEG-4 camcorder. Helping keep the weight down, the Sanyo E1 features an SD- and SDHC-compatible memory card recording medium and a very compact battery. In our tests, we got an average of 85 minutes of typical recording environments. The temperature of the water in which you're shooting may cause results to vary. On a 4GB SDHC memory card, you can record 2 hours and 45 minutes of video.

The Xacti E1 is very functional underwater. The buttons are easy to reach. In total, there are 5 external buttons plus a navigational pad, consisting of a 4-way pad with a center selection button. Under the colorful waterproof shell is 1/2.5" CCD imager capable of snapping off 6-megapixel still photos. That's an impressive imager at this price point, rivaling camcorders twice as expensive. Employing this imager is critical for underwater video, because most natural underwater environments are not as bright as above water. The optical zoom power will take you up to 5x, which is not too bad for this small waterproof camcorder. The zoom speed is non-variable and set fairly fast, so it's more for framing and composition than for creating production-quality zooms. The viewing angle is nice and wide too, allowing you to cover a lot of ground in frame, perfect for smaller pools.

With such a simple exterior design, the Xacti E1 surprised us with the amount of control built in to its internal menu. There is manual focus, although it's not very precise, but at least you can override the auto mode in tricky conditions. We suspect that, for underwater video, you'd be better off in auto focus, which the Xacti E1 provides in three modes: total range, normal and macro. Our auto focus experience was fairly good. Occasionally, in darker waters, the waterproof camcorder would focus hunt. A choice of 9-point auto focus or spot auto focus should also improve these conditions.

White balancing manually is possible, although this is probably not a big concern for most recreational underwater video shooters. For those above surface, say water skiers, this makes much more sense. The auto white balance performs fairly well in changing conditions. Additionally, there is a sunny, cloudy, fluorescent and incandescent white balance preset. The Sanyo Xacti E1 seems to work for common out-of-water shooting environments as well. We appreciate all these manual controls that give this waterproof camcorder a life beyond the pond.

There's a single compartment on the lower backside of the Xacti E1, where the USB/AV port, battery slot and SD/SDHC memory card reside. A rubber seal on the inside of the door to that compartment and its corresponding latch keep the compartment access dry. It's important to note that the door to the compartment will close and appear to be secure, but you must slide the latch into the lock position to ensure a waterproof seal. It's very easy to forget to do that. We forgot several times - accidentally, of course. Lucky for us we still have a working waterproof camcorder.

There is one more serious problem with the compartment. You can slide the battery into place incorrectly with no resistance. We suspect that someone in this 2/3 underwater world could manage to load the battery improperly, swim/water ski/surf away from dry land and discover that the camcorder won't power on. Oops. Unable to safely turn around the battery, one would require a trip back to dry land. We would have liked to see Sanyo design a battery that will not physically load incorrectly, helping shooters prevent this mistake. Just remember to power on after loading the battery or carefully assess the process as you do it.

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