One of the great things about any new technology is that it eventually becomes affordable enough for the rest of us – and so it is with HD camcorders. Seven years ago, you were looking at the thick end of £2,000 for the first consumer HD models; now, as you’ll see, you can pick one up for as little as £237 if you shop around online as we did. How times have changed.

Another great thing about this tech trickle-down effect is that you also get a heck of lot for your money – not only in terms of outright video quality when compared to standard definition camcorders, but also in the range of features on offer. HD camcorders can now shoot stills (saving you the hassle of lugging two cameras around) and boast all kinds of shooting modes that help you record in less-than-perfect conditions.

Nearly all the camcorders here also offer simple point-and-shoot modes – so you don’t need to be a camcorder geek to get good footage, although some also offer ‘pro’ level features if you want to take your movie-making further.

You’ll also notice that our line-up of low-cost HD camcorders offers a range of media to record to. Built-in hard drives, removable flash memory cards, and even solid-state drives have replaced tape, and you’ll see all three types represented here or, indeed, any combination of the three.

That’s largely down to the fact that virtually all the camcorders here record in the AVCHD format. This provides up to 1,920 x 1,080i full HD recording using the same AVC/H.264 video codec favoured by Apple for QuickTime and, to a certain extent, by Blu-ray. The one exception here is the Toshiba Camileo X100, which records video using the AVI codec, but more on that later.

The only issue that remains then is how to get your video footage (or stills) out of your camcorder and onto your Mac. Because it’s compressed, AVCHD video is processor-intensive – which means you’ll need a Mac with an Intel processor and preferably iMovie ’08 or iMovie ’09, as well as a lot of hard drive storage space for archiving and editing.

So let’s give a warm handshake to the Canon Legria HF200 (with an RRP of £749, it’s not technically a sub-£500 product, but we found it online for much less), the JVC Everio GZ-HD300AEK, the Panasonic SDC-HD60, Samsung HMX-H104, Sony HDR-CX105 and Toshiba Camileo X100.

Buying Advice

We asked a key question at the beginning of this test: is it possible to buy a decent HD camcorder for under £500? Yes and no. At the upper end of the price limit, the Canon Legria HF200, Sony HDR-CX105 and Panasonic HDC-SD60 all put in great performances. But we found that the lower the price, the worse the models. As you might expect, you really do get what you pay for.

Falling first is the Toshiba Camileo X100. Yes, it’s by far the cheapest camcorder here, but it has more than its fair share of faults: from shooting AVI video, which is tricky to get into iMovie, to a poorly thought out user interface and below-par picture quality.

Next to be crossed off our list of potential purchases is the Samsung HMX-H104. It’s stylish and feature-packed, but in this company it simply doesn’t deliver the kind of high-quality HD images we expect. It’s also full of interface quirks that take some getting used to – and its SSD doesn’t really offer any benefit over conventional flash memory or hard drive storage.

Jostling for third place are the JVC Everio GZ-HD300 and the Sony HDR-CX105. Both camcorders are capable of delivering good HD image quality, but suffer from tricky user interfaces that make them a little frustrating to use. The Sony just edges into that third spot.

In second place, then, is the Panasonic HDC-SD60. Despite its bulk, it’s capable of delivering excellent HD image quality, offers a decent range of features and is relatively easy to use. It’s also excellent value for money.

That makes the Canon Legria HF200 our winner. It not only offers excellent image quality and a great range of useful features, but in many ways it’s the easiest to use, with a logical menu system that novices and experienced users alike will delight in getting to grips with. It might sit right at the top of our price band, but the Canon Legria HF200 really is worth every penny.