Impressive optical quality and storage space, though a touch expensive

Cheaper than the HF10, although you need to factor in the cost of storage cards

A capable cam that'll take the knocks and matches it rival, the Panasonic HDC-SD1. It can’t quite better Canon’s HV20 on sheer performance though

Great video, tons of features, easy to use... if only there was a PAL-friendly version

Not much to tempt you over last year's HV20 but Canon still rules the roost when it comes to raw picture quality

Canon’s first hard disk-based AVCHD camcorder gets it mostly right, with a good level of features and the best image quality we’ve yet seen from the format.

Canon grabs the crown for the most fully featured HDV camcorder for under $1500

Easily one of the cheapest 60GB hard drive cameras, but its image quality is cheap too.

The Panasonic NV-GS15 is the cheaper version of the NV-GS120, but you wouldn't pick it to look at them. It is not until you start to use it that you discover why it is $600 cheaper than its big brother with the three CCD's. The single, 800,000 (400,000 effective) pixel CCD produces average picture quality and certainly nothing that would compare with the 1.62 million (1.02 million effective) of the NV-GS120.

This well-priced mini cam fits snugly in the palm of your hand and like any good entry-level camera can even be used by a child. It's just a matter of pointing and shooting which gets points in our books for a consumer camera.