Panasonic HDC 40

They're compact and have manual controls, a zoom lens, and a video light, which is nice for the price of the ; .

When it comes to video quality, you're getting what you pay for.

Panasonic's HDC-TM40, TM41 and SD40 are some of the cheapest camcorders you can buy with a zoom lens and manual controls. If you care about video quality, spend a little more money on another model; if you don't, buy the cheapest one of these you can...

Records 1080i like a proper camcorder of it's price range, decent zoom speed, built in memory, use right out of the box, small, decent battery life, SDXC support, Stereo microphones sound good (for their size), outstanding stabilizer.

LED light breaks too easily (and isn't even really much of an LED), pain in the *** to repair, zoom lever is very fragile (pops off, needs to be taken apart and superglued on), only 16 GB built on, not for use by idiots, recording delay.