Pros: Great optical quality, easy handling, intutive joystick/menu system, near true widescreen, 3CCDs, still camera functions, great fansite (pana3CCDuser.com)

Cons: No headphone jack, no Analoge to Digital Passthrough, Panasonics not known to have best battery duration or low cost, would be nice if the camera came with an SD card

Overall Review: I did lots of research on cameras and I decided that this was the right one for me. It's closest competition for me was the Panasonic PV-GS300, it's younger, cheaper, brother. The 500 has better picture quality and low light (which includes most normal home lighting) and some added features. The biggest drawback for me was the lack of a headphone jack, but using the A/V out cable, and an RCA to 1/8" female adapter, I was able to get some headphones to work. If copying VHS to DVD is important, there are PC cards that can do a much better job then cameras do anyway.

Pros: I bought 5 of these (at a much, much higher price) in December '08 to use in a RAID5 in my video editing computer. So far no faults which is quite impressive, and they seem to run cool and quiet enough to not hear them over my system fans.

Cons: As stated before, these used to be pretty expensive.

Pros: Seems to have worked well so far Great price for a 512MB card This is the same amount of memory that my parent's computer has

Cons: none

Overall Review: I've been using this in my digital video camera for shooting stills. I have had no problems with it so far. I have only ever used up to about 1/3 of the memory, so I guess it might be possible that some of the card is corupted.

Pros: Mine works, and that's what I was looking for in a FireWire cable The clear/silver is a nice touch

Cons: none

Overall Review: I was about to order this cable in boring old black, but then I decided that I wanted the cooler looking and more standard clear/silver

Pros: Functions as well as it looks (good), solid construction, offers dividers for inner area

Cons: A tad small for me

Overall Review: I purchased this in tandem with the Panasonic PV-GS500. This camera is small, but a bit larger then the standard consumer level camera. The camera itself fits nice, but if you have much for accessories they won't all fit. When I load the camera, 3 MiniDV tapes, and 3 batteries, I don't have room for the power adapter or my mic.