Camcorder
Many first-time parents are too doting, harried or tired to take out the camcorder. If you are looking for ways to save money, consider borrowing a camcorder to see how much you'll use it before deciding how much of an investment you want to make. There are some excellent options for around $800-1000, with variations in recording media (tapes, flash drives, hard drives and dvds), features and price. And if you see yourself recording your child's life like a professional filmmaker, there's an outstanding option for $3300 for you, too. In 2007, two extremely compact, inexpensive (under $200) and easy-to-use camcorders -- the Flip and the Small Wonder -- took the market by storm, selling over a million units. Their lack of features may be a vice to video enthusiasts but are a virtue to everyone else: they are so easy to use that you are much more to actually take some video. And since most people mainly want to capture moments like their baby's first rollover, crawl and steps and not edit a Hollywood-quality movie, these are terrific options for almost everyone.
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$120
The Flip is the original and better-known model, but the Small Wonder is the less expensive of these minimalist compact camcorders and has a memory card slot that allows you to expand your storage from one hour to roughly five hours of video. Incredibly inexpensive and easy to use, unless you only have a Mac (it is not Mac compatible), this is a great option for recording "good enough" video.
$146
The Flip revolutionized video recording in 2007, with an unprecedented price and simple ease of use. Unlike the Small Wonder, it is compatible with Macs as well as PCs. However, you can't add an extra memory card to it, and some models are a bit more expensive.
$815
Flash-based HD camcorder. Comes with 16 GB of integrated Flash memory. Also supports SD Flash cards if you want to expand the storage.
$1000
This HD camcorder including a hard drive with 60gb of storage. You can record roughly 7 hours of video at the highest definition setting. At standard definition, you can record over 14 hours. At the lowest quality, you can record over 40 hours.
$3300
If you see yourself recording your child's life like a professional documentary filmmaker, this is an outstanding option. Records onto either MiniDV Cassette tapes or Flash Memory Cards (and comes with 16 MB Flash - SD Memory Card).