Camcorders

Creative Vado HD

The easy-to-use Vado HD marries impressive video quality with a strong feature set, making it a serious rival to the leader in the mini-camcorder market, the Flip Video Mino HD. The Vado HD also boasts one feature that its main rivals do not -- a mini HDMI connector

User rating 7.0

Editor's rating 8.0

Flip Video UltraHD

The Flip Video UltraHD follows its other mini-camcorder brethren in getting simplicity right. Although it's lacking in style, the UltraHD makes up in ease of use and good 720p HD video quality. It delivers the best video yet from these budget, Web-friendly camcorders

Editor's rating 8.0

Toshiba Camileo H20

The attractive and solid Camileo H20 is an excellent 1080p compact camcorder for a reasonable price. Extremely simple to use, it also delivers generally good image and sound quality, making it remarkably easy for a camcorder novice to become a HD maestro in seconds

User rating 3.5

Editor's rating 8.0

Flip Video MinoHD

The MinoHD isn't without its drawbacks, most notably a high price tag and its lack of a memory-expansion slot, but it's a great mini-camcorder nonetheless. Considering its size, this ultra-simple device shoots solid 720p video, and uploading your recordings to the Internet couldn't be much easier

Editor's rating 8.0

Panasonic HDC-SD10

The Panasonic HDC-SD10 is a great pocket camcorder that manages to combine diminutive dimensions with good-quality, 1080p high-definition video. Beginners will have no problems using it, but there are plenty of options to keep more experienced users happy, too

Editor's rating 8.0

Flip Video Mino

The Flip Video Mino's more compact design makes it more pocket-friendly than its predecessor, the Ultra. Its 2GB of memory is decent, it uploads videos to YouTube with ease and this version has an integrated rechargeable battery, which will save you money. And you'll need it, too, at this price

Editor's rating 7.8

Kodak Zx1 Pocket Video Camera

The easy-to-use Zx1 Pocket Video Camera HD mini-camcorder offers a relatively rugged design, good video quality and expandable memory. A flip-out USB connector is sorely missed and we'd like a bundled memory card, but this speedy performer still represents decent value for money

Editor's rating 7.6

Canon Legria FS200

The Canon Legria FS200 is an attractive standard-def camcorder that packs a 37x optical zoom into an extremely compact body. It's simple to operate, films good-quality video and is a solid choice for those shooting movies for sharing on the Web or who just don't want or need HD video

User rating 8.0

Editor's rating 7.6

Kodak Zi8

If you're after broadcast-quality footage and full manual controls, the 1080p-capable Zi8 isn't for you. But if you're seeking an inexpensive, straightforward, pocket-friendly camcorder that produces relatively good video and photos, this device is likely to be right up your street

Editor's rating 7.5

Canon FS100

At a budget price, the Canon FS100 is small, stylish and provides a reasonably expansive feature set for an SD card-based camcorder. It's a compact and convenient video camera with a hybrid zoom for very long shots

User rating 8.0

Editor's rating 7.4

Canon FS10

At a budget price, the Canon FS10 is small, stylish and provides a reasonably expansive feature set for an SD card-based camcorder. With 8GB of flash memory built in as well, it's a compact and convenient video camera with a hybrid zoom for very long shots

Editor's rating 7.4

Panasonic NV-GS80

The Panasonic NV-GS80 is a MiniDV camcorder available at the appeallingly low price of around £200. It produces excellent video, which is mostly clean and free of grain, and comes with a useful 32x optical zoom lens and optical image stabilisation

Editor's rating 7.4

Sony Bloggie CM5

Larger than some rivals, the 1080p Bloggie CM5 mini-camcorder nevertheless compares well to its competitors in terms of picture quality. It also offers a useful feature set, including a 5x optical zoom, swivelling display, memory-card slot and the ability to shoot impressive close-ups

Editor's rating 7.4

Canon FS11

At a budget price, the Canon FS11 is small, stylish and provides a reasonably expansive feature set for an SD card-based camcorder. With 16GB of flash memory built in as well, it's a compact and convenient video camera with a hybrid zoom for very long shots

Editor's rating 7.4

Panasonic VDR-D310

The Panasonic VDR-D310 is the most high-end Panasonic DVD camcorder you can get. With a 10x Leica lens giving it a significant edge, it clearly appears to be designed for users who want high-quality video without investing the significant money required for hi-def

Editor's rating 7.3

Samsung VP-HMX10

The Samsung VP-HMX10 is a very accessible camcorder. While its glossed black, classy design emphasises the importance of style, it's also extremely user friendly. Surprisingly, it's priced to be affordable, helping this Samsung bring HD shooting to the masses

Editor's rating 7.2

Canon MVX460

Canon's MVX460 is more compact than its entry-level MV models. It offers a larger, higher-resolution CCD sensor that provides 1-megapixel still images and better video resolution. Canon has also addressed some design issues from previous MVX models, making this a great compact camcorder, if don't need to shoot in low light

User rating 9.0

Editor's rating 7.2

Canon MV750i

User rating 10.0

Editor's rating 7.0

Panasonic SDR-S10

Panasonic's SDR-S10 all-weather flash-based camcorder is waterproof, dustproof and drop-proof, making it great for a beach holiday, a music festival or some hardcore snow action. Thankfully it's both light in weight and light on the pocket, too

Editor's rating 7.0

Kodak Zi6

While bigger than most of its competitors and high priced for a mini camcorder, the Kodak Zi6's attractive design and decent video quality adequately compensate for some usability drawbacks. Most notably, we wanted an optional memory card to make up for the mere 30MB of storage

User rating 9.0

Editor's rating 7.0