I own a Canon VIXIA R60 camcorder. It has 8GB of internal memory. The “new” R70 has 16GB of internal memory. This doubling of the R60/R62 internal memory seems to be the ONLY thing that changed in the “refresh” of the VIXIA R-series camcorders; in fact, comparing the R600 and R700 (the versions with no Wi-Fi/NFC connectivity and no internal flash memory) there is absolutely no difference between the camcorders at all.

Well, except for the $100 higher price tag. The R600 was available at retail as cheaply as $200 a couple of months ago, while the identical R700 is $300. The flash+wireless variants go up in price as you’d expect.

What really pisses me off about this is that Canon has done NOTHING to improve the camcorders at all; this “refresh” is just a way to bump the prices back up 50% on the same exact pieces of hardware. It’s the biggest and most blatant ripoff I’ve ever seen. You’re literally paying $100 more to have a number “6” changed to “7” in print.I was hoping to snag a $200 R600 as a secondary camcorder, but I see they’ve vanished in favor of the identical but grossly overpriced R700. I might have to re-think my position as an exclusive Canon purchaser over this stupidity. I feel like my intelligence has been grossly insulted here.

Even worse: it turns out the R600 is identical to the R500 as well. Canon’s least expensive consumer camcorder hasn’t been improved in many years. Come on Canon, at least give us a slightly bigger sensor or a cold shoe or something. Good grief.