When we read about the high-end camcorder range from Canon that is the Canon Legria HF M-Series, we rather thought that they'd have to be quite big when stuffed with Wi-Fi technology, 32GB of onboard storage and an enhanced Canon Intelligent IS system. Not so. It's tiny.

Not much bigger than a pocket camcorder, the top of the range Canon Legria HFM52 sits in your palm almost too unobtrusively. It's seriously light and small and that means that it's verging on the too diddy to operate properly; verging but still practical enough.

The 10x zoom system is super smooth to operate and stunningly quiet too. Combined with the IS system and low light power of the HD CMOS Pro sensor, it means that even when in as tight as possible, it captures clean, non-shaky pictures without any noticeable noise or dimming.

Perhaps the one shame of it all is the 3-inch touchscreen. Don't get us wrong. It's of good quality, easy to manoeuvre and certainly bright and responsive enough. The trouble is that once it's covered in all the little icons, you'd rather there was a touch more space to actually get a clearer look at your subject.

Whinging aside though, the AVCHD compatibility is obviously useful along with the Wi-Fi and therefore DLNA connectivity. We didn't get to try out the iOS app for direct streaming but it certainly sounds fun.

More on the matter in April 2012