There has recently been a race-to-the-bottom in video cameras, whereby quality has been sacrificed for price and ease of use, however there are still cameras out there that are easy to use, have excellent quality and are pretty pocket friendly.

That's where the Sanyo Xacti HD2000 comes in, one of the latest in Sanyo's recently refreshed video camera range. We check it out to see what's what.

The HD2000 is a new-style pistol gripped unit with a 2.7" flip out LCD screen, a Full HD recording mode, SDHC memory format as well as HDMI connectivity. It certainly doesn't lose marks for style, as the nice matt black plastic and classy silver highlights give the device a high-end feel. The screen is capacious, and offers a decent enough size for viewing and playback, whilst also being crisp and sharp.

Control is handled by the traditional digital video camera start/stop rocker switch configuration, just placed above where you thumb comfortably sits whilst filming and works well and intuitively. There is also a flick-up flash for night time filming sessions that can be unlocked by pressing a button near the top of the unit.

So how does it perform? Admirably. For the £335 you can find the HD2000 online for, there aren't really any complaints. Full HD works well, and seems to cope with low lights and movement that other cameras that claim HD prowess struggle with. It does gobble down storage space, so you will need a relatively large/multiple SDHC card, and be aware, it doesn't come with one out of the box (an 8GB one on Amazon should run you less than £10).

The rest of the video modes all offer slight higher than expected levels of quality, making it a good bet for not only recording videos for your living room's HD telly, but also for the Youtubers out there as well.

Sanyo has been trying to emphasise the Dual (video and stills) capabilities of this line of cameras, and whilst it will give you perfectly good enough pictures, we'd still recommend that you have a digi cam with you if it's an important occasion just because having your still camera in your video camera isn't the most convenient thing for an event.

In all then, the HD2000 performs well when compared to other HD video cameras, and sporting a less-than-scary pricetag, it seems like an absolute blinder.