When I was looking to purchase a replacement for my Canon VIXIA HF R600, I considered several alternatives as well as the derivative R800. In particular, I evaluated the Panasonic HC-V180K and the Sony HDRCX405, both of which are excellent cameras but both failed to tick all the boxes I required. I will say that both of these other cameras offered one or more features that were better than those in the Canon, but as I said, they failed to meet the minimum criteria in other areas.

The Sony offers 50Mbps 1080p video at 60p. With the 26.8 wide angle ZEISS lens and 30x optical zoom, but there is no external microphone jack which is non-negotiable for me.

The Panasonic HC-V180K has a 2.51 megapixel 1/5.8-inch BSI MOS Sensor, 50x Optical Zoom and a 28mm Wide-Angle lens. Again there is no external microphone jack which is a major deal breaker.

The R800 has the better zoom and generally better features for my intended use, plus it had an external microphone jack. At 35 MBPS the Canon can take great 1080p video at 60 frames per second in MP4 format, and that was what I needed. Video quality is good, even under low light conditions, at least as good as the R600 which I bought it to replace.

Since the Canon VIXIA HF R800 doesn't have any internal memory, you have to buy an SD card. I view this as a good thing because I could pick one that suited me. I went with a speedy Class 10 128 GB SDXC memory card and so far, it has performed flawlessly.

The Canon HF R800 houses the same 3.28-megapixel Full HD CMOS (1080/60p) 4.85" CMOS sensor and DIGIC DV 4 processor as the HF R80 and HF R82. For my requirements, there is nothing to pick between the models in the way of optical qualities, so if you don't need Wi-Fi, the Canon VIXIA HF R800 offers a better price-to-performance ratio.

I've been using it for several weeks now and all-in-all I am delighted with my choice.