Better HD image quality than you’d expect for such a small camcorder, but the price is still a little high.

Small, sleek, easy to use and capable of producing excellent results, no matter where you are.

The Sony HDR-XR200VE mini cam uses gyros to provide image stabilisation, and has an inbuilt GPS receiver

An entry-level HD camcorder with an identity crisis, but at this price, it puts quality in the hands of everyone.

Great image quality and plenty of enthusiast features for a very reasonable price

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.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the size and performance of this digital format. The cameras are a fraction of the size of the old camcorders we used to lug around the countryside, the batteries last longer, the tapes get smaller and, the quality gets better.

A cheap and cheerful camera, but short on elegance, quality in low light, and ease of use.

If the CCD is the brain of a digital video camera it is logical that three should be better than one. A single CCD has to deal with all colours together while a 3-CCD system divides the primary red, green and blue (RGB) colours to individual CCDs to give a much more precise and accurate picture. The result is a high quality image that is as good as any of the cameras tested - including the Sony DVD201E, which provided the benchmark for most of the others.