you've heard wrong, the camera shoots around the range of my fx1 in a smaller package, infact you cant even tell a difference in some of my shots when i used it.
http://media.nscdn.com/uploads/site/news/11736840767757/SkiTourSquawValley.mov
https://www.newschoolers.com/web/content/videos/id/127252/member_id/39278/
https://www.newschoolers.com/web/content/videos/id/121335/member_id/39278/
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1184163250
the longboarding one was filmed entirely w/ the HC3, and yes the quality is down because its on Myspace, but both cameras film in 1080i, and the total resolution is 1920x1080. Same size as the FX1 color comes out just as good.
all of those have shots from both my FX1 and HC3, and you tell me if you can see a difference, because i really cant!