Best Budget Camcorders | Camcorder HQ's Holiday Buyer's Guide
Times have changed since Pure Digital tapped the market on inexpensive, easy-to-use, ultra-portable camcorders. HD is ubiquitous, and ergonomics are creeping back into the designs. If you're buying for the YouTube-posting, Flip-loving member in your family, look below for some compact cams that are sure to please.
| [Read our full Flip MinoHD review] Pure Digital, for all intents and purposes, invented the pocket camcorder market when they introduced the first Flip a few years ago. The Pure Digital Flip Video MinoHD sticks with the tried-and-true design, adding 720p HD video and trimming the physical profile a bit. The picture quality is decent (though it could use image stabilization) and the fold-out USB arm all but guarantees an easy transfer to your computer and one-touch uploading to YouTube, AOL, and MySpace. It has everything you or your kids need to make good, quality videos without much fuss. There are better straight-to-web mini camcorders out there, but a Flip is always a safe bet. | |
| The Sanyo CG-10 isn't really a pocket camcorder, so it's been overlooked to a certain degree. Meanwhile, it has quietly become one of the more popular compact camcorders on the market, and with good reason. Sanyo markets it as a "dual" camera; it combines a 720p HD video camera and a 10 megapixel still camera into one ergonomic, pistol-grip package. Connecting the CG-10 to a computer isn't quite as brainless as the Kodak Zi8 or any of the Flip camcorders, but it still has direct-to-YouTube capabilities. | |
| [Read our full Kodak Zi8 review] Consumers might be hesitant to go for the Kodak Zi8; as our reviewer put it, "[Kodak's] digital cameras have been one disappointing lemon after another, frustrating users and cheating them out of their money." But the Zi8 is a great little pocket camcorder and the company's best product in years. The image stabilization and 1080p HD recording help it to outperform the Flip, and the MSRP is lower. Kodak is set to announce another pocket-cam model early next year at CES 2010, but you won't go wrong gifting this excellent camcorder. | |
| Like the Sanyo CG-10, the Sony Webbie CM1 ditches the brick-like design of the Flip and Kodak Zi8 models in favor of the traditional hand-strap camcorder aesthetic. Aside from that, it shares most of the desirable features of the rest of these ultra-portable, low-cost, web-ready cameras, and then some. It weighs just seven ounces, shoots in 1080p, offers 20x digital zoom, and at the time of writing, costs a few dollars less than even the Flip MinoHD at several retailers. The design may not be en vogue, but this is a perfectly capable of capturing those priceless moments. | |
| For those truly on a tight budget, the RCA Small Wonder EX300HD fits the bill. The 720p video and 5 megapixel still camera are decent for the price, and it does feature a cool flip-out lens for fresh shooting angles. Consumer reviews thus far rank it well below any of the products listed above; you're better off dropping the extra $30 for a MinoHD or Webbie, but this will do the trick if you really have no other choice. |
