Digi video cam advice

[biosurf]

'ello all

I'm after a digital video camera to replace my old video tape one. I would also like it to take decent stills but the main importance to me is size, it must be able to comfortably fit in a pocket to take out and just so its not an effort to carry it. Also battery life needs to be at least reasonable. I dont own a digi cam as I've always manmaged to get away with using my phone for what I need or half inching a family members one.

I'm not fussed with it being the hugest number of megapixels as to me absolute clarity down to the nth degree isnt as much of a concern as just being able to catch reasonably decent quality images.

Main questions are:
Is it better to get a digital camera that has the capacity to take movie clips or a digital video camera that can take stills (I'm presuming that cameras may be limited on the amount of time of clip?) Is the main difference whether it is held horizontally (cam) or sideways on (vid) ?

I'm looking at spending around £100. Is this unrealistic? As I said I'm not after cutting edge quality but dont want really bad either.

SD are the best means of storage arent they?

Is it better to get a brand new cheap end example or a second hand higher end example (i.e. does tech move on so fast that last years £300 and now £100 second hand is still inferior to brand new £100?)

Any recommendations for around my price range?

Thanking yow!

[Diezel Weazel]

Hi Paul,
Know I'm no technophobe but I was brought a DV1301 for about £65 n my son can work it ok, 2.0M Still Camera, Video Camcorder,TV playback etc n is about the size of 2 Fag pkts side by side ..
Hope this helps ...

There's always a Payback .... It'll always take longer than five minutes !!!!

[adpsimpson]

What you'll get in a slightly older £300 camera that you'll never get in a brand new <£100 camera is build quality. Even if the technical specification of a new cheap camera is higher, it will almost certainly not be as well designed or produced as any older, higher range one.

You also find that newer gadgets are chasing certain numbers - mega pixels in cameras, or zoom length, etc. Often the overall thing becomes unbalanced (9 mega pixels packed into a sensor 6mm across is pointless - it's simply oversampling). Older tech is often better this way too. Many top-of-the-line still cameras are actually slower, store less pictures, the pictures are 2x the file size and picture quality is no better, or even worse, when compared to a 3 year old camera from the same line.

Don't know if the same applies as much to video cameras, but suspect it does.