[tdodd]

A friend of mine has asked me to pick a camcorder as a birthday gift for her boyfriend and after reading loads of reviews of Sony, Panasonic, Canon and JVC camcorders, both new and older models I am still as uncertain about what to recommend as I was in the beginning. The budget is up to £400 but less would be fine.

I think video performance is the most important factor in selection, along with the ability to record widescreen video. Photo performance is of no consequence as the guy already has a 6MP Olympus something or other. I think simplicity of operation as a "point and shooter" will be more attractive than masses of manual control. This will be for holiday and family stuff rather than movie making. Finally, while small/compact is attractive from the portability viewpoint, the guy has fairly large hands so fiddly operation would not be a good thing, and zoom placement might be critical to the decision.

Everything I read (given the budget) keeps leading me towards the Sony DCR-HC39 or 42, both available for around £300. I just can't find anything that leaps out as a better choice for under £400. The new HC44E and HC46 models don't appear to offer any advantages and with a smaller imager (and smaller dimensions) seem to be a step backwards. The HC90 looks like a great choice but it simply too expensive.

His birthday is on 1st March so there isn't time to wait much longer for new releases to reach the stores. Can anyone suggest better options than the DCR-HC42 for under £400?

Thanks

[tdodd]

To add to the above I have been looking at the camcorder rankings here - http://www.easycamcorders.com/ratings.php - hoping to basically focus on the highest rated camcorders that fit the budget. But all the Canon models are based on US naming conventions and I don't know how these translate to their UK equivalents. Can anyone help on that one?

Or does anyone know of other websites with easy rankings of camcorders that are based on some degree of actual testing rather than who pays the biggest advertising fee?