I got myself the HF M52 yesterday to use as a backup camera to my XA10.. I did a few test shots and put them together with comparisons from my XA10.

Hope this helps in some way :)

Canon XA10 and HF M52 Comparison - YouTube

I got myself the HF M52 yesterday to use as a backup camera to my XA10.. I did a few test shots and put them together with comparisons from my XA10.

What was your impression of the image quality of each camera before compressing for YouTube?

Well the XA10 is the best camera I've used image quality wise and I can't really compare it to more expensive cameras. But in my opinion the image quality of both cameras is very good. The HF M52 seems to produce a very similar image to the XA10 (maybe not quite as sharp, but very similar colours), which is impressive considering the price difference. Personally if I didn't need the XLR inputs I'd probably just buy the HF M52.