We set one of these up at the Sony Centre I work at in the UK yesterday and the unit is certainly well made and sounds good (I totally agree with the reviewer that the separation is great as is the sub - one of the best passive ones I have heard) but is definitely not worth the price, you can get a 40w4500, bdps550 and a Decent amp and speakers (read not Sony) for the same price!

@Larry your view on speakers being the weak link although true in some cases is generally regarded as being an outdated one, the source and amplification are usually where most of the detail of the sound is either preserved or lost. As for a stereo setup needing a subwoofer or "12" inch woofers" if you have a truely good, balanced setup you won't need this. And as an aside, for £300 you can easily get a half decent amp and a set of speakers which will outshine this, something like a Rotel RA-04 and a set of Mordaunt-Shorts, nothing but a gimmick in my opinion.

Base model FW11E is £799 P8400 3gb ram 250gb hdd dvdrw
FW11L is £849 same spec but with Blu-ray combo and 2gb ram
FW11M is £949 i think (can't quite remember) adds 4gb ram
FW11S is £1199 adds 300gb and BD writer
FW11ZU is £1299 has faster P9400 proc and Radeon 3650
Fairly good value in the lower specs for Centrino 2 and Blu-ray they are also fairly slim and don't feel too heavy, the screen is awesome quality.

Unfortunately even though the w3000 and x3000/3500 have built in HD tuners you will only be able to access HD broadcasts through your aerial (no HD content through this means as of yet) not via the freesat service, i.e. you will still need a set-top box.
Hope this helps.

It does have optical image stabilisation (Super SteadyShot). Quote from Sony UK site under key features: "Super SteadyShot optical image stabilisation for clearer stills and video" http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowArticle.action?article=1206545456395&site=odw_en_GB&source=rss

Unfortunatly AVCHD is only supported by the latest version of iMovie ('08) and Final Cut Express 4.
I haven't been able to test both camcorders side by side yet (I only have access to the Sony) but from testing the Sony it seems to handle indoor situations with minimal disortion, there is some dithering as described by bassbeast but i didn't feel it was as intrusive as he does.
Hope this helps.

$900 is cheap compared to here in the UK where it's £650 (~$1300)!

Yeah, this has been in the sony centre i work at for a while now at £319.99 in the UK.