Canon,Sony, or Panasonic???

[rivrbyte]

Hello,
I'm thinking about buting a new camcorder to replace my old,very old JVC analog camcorder. There are way too many models and features, pros and cons about this area.
The panasonic site has it phased out. My local Electronics store has one for $899.90.

Panasonic also told me the HDC-SD800K, also last years model has also been phased out. So then I began looking at the Canon Vixia M500. Someone told me to save my money if the camera is a middle of the raod and spend at least twice as much for a good camera. I can not afford a PROSUMER, just something better in a consumer, higher than average camera with AVCHD, 3.1 or 5.1 Dolby, low motor noise, good optics and optical zoom. NO HARD DRIVE. They can go bad sitting on a back of a boat, can be dropped, and then it's broken. I'm not going to do 3D, or use the projector feature on the Sony.

So out of these four models,
*Canon M500 - (chose this body because I can buy my own SDHC cards, don't really think I need the internal memory)

*Panasonic X900MK OR ($898.00)

*Panasonic HDC-TM900K ($899.99) OR

*Sony HDR-CX760 ($1500.00) Too much for my pocket book.

So optical zoom, low motor noise, great optics and dolby sound, (no hard drives) most still pixel images, if i needed that, etc., what would be the best choice, without going over $ 900.00?

[aedipuss]

nothing better than the tm900k that i know of in that price range. but check camcorderinfo.com for reviews of all of them yourself before buying.

[rivrbyte]

I went to Amazon to look for the Panasonic HDC-TM900, and the Panasonic HDC-TM700K and they had the new replacement, the HC-X900M for $898.00.

I do not have a 3D HDTV, so I highly doubt I will be shooting with the 3D lenses (sold separately).

So no 3D.
No hard drive based camera. (I can supply my own SDHC memory cards, but can be happy with at least 32GB internal.)
No projector type like Sony HDR-CX760
Low light recording
Dolby 5.1
AVCHD
High Definition
Good Optical zoom, and maybe high MP count for still images, but not important.

Thank you for the help!