We get introduced to the new camera

I've been very lucky to be one of a few people who get to trial and review a Panasonic HM-TA20 HD mobile camera courtesy of 'Soup' and the 'Panasonic Insider Crew'.  Here is the offical web page from Panasonic:

Panasonic HM-TA20 camera

I only received the camera by courier today so I have opened the box and had a look before connecting it via USB to my laptop to be charged up.  I'm impressed at first glance by the styling of the camera and the vivid electric blue colour.  There are a number of buttons and covers around the edges and it took me a bit to figure out how to open the USB cover (I'm notorious for trying to figure stuff out without the use of the manual) but ended up looking it up.  There are locks to stop accidental opening of the covers (the camera is safe to use underwater) and the USB port has a button which pops it out to be connected.  When I first tried to connect the cable I found it a bit tight (probably because it was new) and was a bit nervous as I didn't want to push to hard and break something off before I even got to use it!

After leaving it to charge I then turned it on and had a bit of a look around and set up the date and time.  The touch screen is a bit less sensitive than my iphone screen and that is probably because it is waterproof.  It was still easy enough to get it to respond though.  The onscreen menu is very simple with only a a few things available to change.  This is fine as it is point and shoot.  I figured out how to change the date / time settings without the use of the manual and everything else seemed self explanatory!

It doesn't come with an SD card and the internal memory is limited to 10Mb so I didn't try using the video mode until I sort out a card to use.  I did take some photos though on the 2Mb (1600 x 1200) mode and that fit about 12 photos before being told memory was full.

I wandered around my garden and took a few shots of some of my plants.  Below are four which I wanted to share

I will continue to take photos and videos in different situations as often as I can and give a running commentary of what I think of the camera as I go.  I will also share it with my two children who are 5 and 4 and see what they can do with it!