Oh PLEASE help me choose a camcorder for dh before my head explodes

[SylviaBells]

I've looked at about a squillion reviews.

lots here, some on amazon but I just can't decide!

It's for nativity plays, sports day, holidays etc, I want better quality than my mobile phone camera but I'm not expecting it to be top notch. Budget is up to£200. I've no idea what features are good/bad .

Please can some kind person advise. Thanks.

How about this one? Seems good value for money and good reviews.

Panasonic SD40

Main thing is that it uses SD, can take movies in HD and a decent zoom.

It does look good but it it is a bit out of my budget. What did you think of the JVC everio GZHM445REK?

What are the benefits of it using SD? Does that mean an SD memory card? I know an optical zoom is better than digital (possibly the only useful thing I found out from the surprisingly unhelpful woman in Jessops).

The JVC has a better zoom. But you get to a certain point and it's useless unless you stick it on a tripod which most people won't have. The reason being is that you can't hold the camera steady enough so you just get shaky vomit inducing videos.

SD cards are how you store the videos. Once upon a time they used to be tapes. Then they tried briefly to use DVD's but that was always going to be a disaster. SD cards are small and cheap to buy so in my opinion perfect.

Ignore digital zoom completely, focus on optical.

I thought you said your budget was £200? The JVC looks to be around the same price as the Panasonic. Look them up on Amazon.

To be honest there's not much between the two in practice. Get the one which looks prettiest!

Ah! Oops! It said £228 for the Panasonic on the trusted review site and I hadn't checked. Any preference out of the two then? Also, I guess I will need to buy an SD card - any makes better than others? Thanks btw for the replies, it's usually the kind of thing I'd be discussing with dh about but obviously in this case I can't

Well the JVC has a better review JVC Review, so it if it were me, I'd probably go with that. But if you can, I'd go have a play in Currys/Jessops/Best Buy to see which you prefer and why.

As for SD card, I'd start with something like a 16GB SD Card Make sure you get them from a decent web site like Amazon so you are not paying through the nose like in a shop, nor are you getting a dodgy rip off from eBay.

If your husband gets really into it then he can get a 64GB card which should be hours worth of videos.

Thanks niceguy2. Camcorder is ordered, will get SD card later