Canon Vixia HF200

Pros: Very easy to use. The dual mode is very nice. No touch screen, all functions work from a joystick and minimal buttons. Very light and small. Picture is fantastic. Image stabilizer is awesome.

Cons: A little tough to reach the thumb roller to change functions from camera to vidcamera. not a big deal. The software is a little bit cumbersome to transfer from the camera to computer.

Summary: Overall this was a great purchase. It was a gift for my wife and we had been shopping for cameras for 12-18 months. This has all of the features that a couple with young kids needs in terms of zoom, speed, size, ease of use. Having a fully flash memory camera is a must for us because of the ease of having many 16 Gig cards with us. the battery life is plentiful and all of the functions are there for a reason and work well. There are a lot of other cameras out there that have some similarities in features but none of them put together the whole package quite as well as Cannon does on this one. Great Job Cannon.