Camcorder recommendations

Is anyone out there happy with their camcorder? I am looking one for my wife's birthday next week.
Thanks,
PES
PS. If you know of a great online deal please feel free to share the URL

I love my panasonic NV-GS27. If you are a beginne and all what you want is to shoot without any complication it is yours.

I got it from mediaonline.de. Costed 270 Euros last June.

After doing a lot of reading up on Amazon and in the German consumer magazine, Stiftungswarentest, I bought a Sony DCR-HC96 last week. I bought it new from a shop on E-bay and paid about 550 (before tax, and including extras and postage). www.preistrend.de lists this item starting from just under 550.

I'm still playing around and getting to know it, so can't report properly on it yet, but am quite happy with it so far. The "rival" camcorder was a Panasonic one - check out the Amazon reviews on .com and .co.uk.

One thing I didn't know about Camcorders, or rather the mini-tapes, is that Sony produces tapes with a wet lubricant and Panasonic (and others) with a dry lubricant. There are a lot threads on this on various camera forums, and the general consensus seems to be that swtiching brands is a big NO-NO, and preferably stick to the same brand and type.

Just thought I'd revive this thread to see if anyone has any new camcorder recommendations. I don't want to pay any more than around $300 or so (yes I mean $ - I'm in California). Is there any reason to get one that records to tapes versus DVDs? I prefer to steer clear of Sony, since all their cables and cards are proprietary. Another thing - there's a good chance I may be moving to Oz soon. Are there any in the range I'm looking at that do both PAL and NTSC? Any advice would be appreciated.

Depends what you want to do. I've just bought a solid state recorder which I am very happy with as it takes nice short HD clips and is also a camera all in a decive that fits in your hand. If you want good quality video you may be better with a different device though. I picked mine up for 370 dollars which was a steal.

Sanyo HD1

I have a Sony camcorder and it came with a standard USB cable.

The only reason I'd give to avoid them is if you're using a Mac. They record in an MPEG format which iMovie will only recognize after you pay for the Pro version of Quicktime.