Price: $514 - $514
After reading reviews, and mainly realizing the bad reviews thought "HD" stood for high-definition, not hard drive, I ultimately chose to try this camera.
This camera was so lightweight when I got it I thought it was missing parts, but sure enough, after it's extremely short charging time, it zoomed right up and prompted me to set the time and date. The joystick to scroll through the options could be a little bigger, but I got the time and date set. I then noticed how crisp and bright the picture was. I did a quick test video, and hooked it up to the TV. I noticed there were some compression artifacts, but the video quality was so much better than my old rubbish-of-a-camera Canon ZR600.
A finally took the camera to an event that would be fun to videotape, and boy did the battery die soon. Lesson learned, shell out the money and get a battery.
OVERALL this is a great camcorder.