I own one of these Digital Camcorders 4 years and so far I had to clean the head twice, changed screen connection cable once, and recently replaced head mechanism. All these, without extreme usage. I even bought a IP box to protect it from dust.

This JVC GRDVP3 digital camcorder worked for about 1 year before becoming unusable because the eject mechanism jammed. Another problem: it was impossible to disable the annoying *sound effects* (explosion, etc) that JVC included with the camera.

The not very long lasting battery is the standard batty delivered with the JVC GRDVP3 camera.

If you are looking for a good quality digital camcorder that is not a pain to carry around, then look no further than the JVC GR DVP3. The picture quality is excellent and the camcorder is easy to master. The size (not much bigger than a large box of matches) and weight was important to me, as I hate having to drag a normal sized camcorder plus bags around with me. The DV in feature is important if you are looking to edit your home movies on your PC and are wanting to download your masterpiece back onto tape (otherwise the DVP1 would be fine.) This review copyright Amazon