Hi – I’ve only just (in the last few days) bought the NX5U (with Worldcam upgrade so I can operate in PAL-land as well) after a lot of umming and ahhing over different options, including the Panasonic 170 (which came a very close second.
I think in the end there were a couple of things that tipped it for me:
I prefer the option of widely available storage cards as I travel a lot (ever tried finding P2 card in Zimbabwe or Russia?).
The availablity of ‘system components’ with Sony e.g. I bought a Sony radio mic, a Sony hard disk drive, Sony screen shade, etc. when I bought the NX5 and I’m only going to one place for support and not having to muck around evaluating different third party options and so on.
I guess in the end it comes down to ‘feel’ though. You need to get both cameras in your hands at your local dealer rather than just reading about them or trying similar cameras but not the actual one. Then just see which one you like best.
I was a bit reticent about going down the AVCHD route at first but I’ve also recently discovered the editing software Edius and it seems to answer any concerns I may have had about that (I wasn’t sure how various other editors handled AVCHD and it all sounded a bit of a nightmare at first to a non-techy like me). I love the filming and scriptwriting but hate the techy, computer stuff.
Hope that’s of some help. I’ve only been filming over the weekend and haven’t had the chance to look at it properly yet but all’s well so far.
Joseph in Ireland with his new NX5