Purchasing electronics on the Internet has always been something I have thought of as a good thing. There is so much research that you can do, good prices, and tons of actual user reviews. Once we decided we might like to get a camcorder (to go with our new mac with iMovie) I started looking on-line, and made a stop at the new Fry's in Renton (which was a huge let down as far as pricing), the decision to get MiniDV was pretty easy, the prices are great, its digital so it works great with the mac. It seems looking online that the Sony TRV-22 (review | Prices) gets the vote for the most passionate users, and reviewers out there as far as having great picture quality, low noise pick up, and great features. We borrowed a friends TVR22 and gave it a whirl on a trip to San Diego, brought it home and made a little iMovie. Good stuff overall, the buttons changing settings and such are touch screen buttons on the LCD view-finder which I found very cool, but not everyone does.

But after actually walking around (or actually not) with the camcorder it became apparent to me that the only way I was actually going to use one was if it was as small as possible and be easy to lug around and pop out and on and then be put away. Eventually we settled on the Elura 50 (review | prices).

Size became the most important issue for me. I wanted to minimize buying something that I would not use, and I think keeping it small will help that. Sony also has a line as well as JVC of smaller camcorders based on he MiniDV format (Sony also has the newer, less compatible, smaller and cooler format MicroDV that uses MPEG-2 compression like DVD to get 60 mins on the smaller tapes), buy the Canon was less than the Sony's and I think Canon makes better lenses than JVC (no offense Glen). Most complains from the MiniDV cameras, it seems like from looking online, come from there low light quality images, (and still quality, which I could really care less about) but in the end I am not a pro-movie maker and even a 40% hit is the quality of low light shooting is better than lugging around a larger camera on the family vacation.

Some valuable sites and services while looking were:
REVIEWS:
Cnet
Camcorder Info: Great Resource(but they love the TRV22)
DV Spot

PRICING:
DealCam
Foogle
Shopping.com

SELLER INFO:
ResellerRatings.com
Appearantly there is a pretty shady side to the cheap NY online retailers where they advertise them cheap, make you call to confirm, try and sell you extras and then tell you it is out of stock.

And I ended up getting it from Onecall.com in Spokane, even though I had to pay tax on it, at $550-30$+Free shipping - 1%= a pretty good deal.

Still waiting on "next day" delivery by the way (notice Spokane to Seattle via Memphis, wtf fedex?).

FedEx take two, still waiting on "Next Day Priority" notice they removed the expected delivery date...