A good camera for the price

I was gonna buy my wife a camcorder for Christmas. So, being the bargain shopper that I am, I wanted the best for the best price. I started to look around at all the different camcorders with all of their options and I was very overwhelmed to say the least. I couldn't believe how many different camcorders and how many different options their are with all of these camcorders. So, after hours and hours of investigating I finally settled on the Cannon ZR700. Now keep in mind that this has only been used for a total of about 3 hours, but it seems to work great. Because of this, I will update this in a few months, but so far everything seems to be great. The only complaints that I have are the useless 1000X digital zoom and the fact that there is no external battery charger. I fixed the battery issue by purchasing a second battery and external charger on ebay for $13.00 including shipping. I pretty much have no use for anything much over 100X digital zoom. The battery life seems to be above average. The audio and video are great for a low price camcorder. There is absolutely no background noise from the camcorder motor. The low light videos are good for a camera in this price range. There are multiple options and effects. The one I really like is the variable zoom speed, although it is a bit easy to zoom in or out a bit fast that you want. This variable zoom speed can be shut of and there are three different settings for zoom speed. The LED light for taping in dark situations is actually quite impressive considering it is only a small LED. I can't add too much more at this time, but will add as I use the camera more and get to experience it in outdoor and other situations.

Update:

So far this camcorder has done everything I have asked it to. The only complaint that I have are the digital zoom which becomes very grainy when used and pretty much useless when used at over 100x. I have no idea why anyone spent money to include this technology when designing this camera. Other than that, the mode you recorder in (normal or widescreen) is exactly what you have. You cannot convert it back once you have recorder something. Because of this, you have to make sure you are recording in the mode that you want the final product to be in. You have a choice of firewire to transfer movies to your computer or you can plug it straight into your VCR or DVD recorder with a RCA A/V plug and transfer directly onto a DVD-R or VHS tape. The controls are pretty simple to operate for the average person. The camera also includes a remote which will allow you to playback from your camcorder right toy our television and also allow you to record from across the room. I have used this for sending family videos (which include me) to other family members. I really cannot think of any other use for it. It works great for both outdoor and indoor movies and the 25x optical zoom is great for filming wildlife.

I can honestly say that if something happened to this camcorder in the next year or so, I would have no problem replacing it with Cannon of the same or similar model.