• I need a camcorder that won't let me (and my boss) down.
• I want to shoot at the office for important meetings and presentations, as well as at other locations.
• I want plenty of useful features at my fingertips, but since I'm not a professional videographer, I need intuitive operation too.

• Design Horizontal; vertical; compact; side-loading cassette preferred
• Lens type 10X or greater zoom controlled via lens ring and switch; electronic or optical image stabilisation
• Sensor Three 1/6-inch or larger CCDs; minimum 250,000-pixel effective (a.k.a. actual) video resolution per sensor or one 1/4- or 1/3-inch CCD; minimum 690,000-pixel effective (a.k.a. actual) video resolution
• Minimum illumination rating 2 to 7 lux (lower is better)
• Recording format MiniDV; mini DVD-R/RW/RAM
• Ports and connectors FireWire (a.k.a. i.Link or IEEE 1394); A/V; S-Video; accessory shoe; microphone terminal; headphone terminal
• Exposure controls Automatic; exposure shift; programmed scene modes; backlight mode; selectable gain settings; zebra stripes to aid exposure adjustment
• Focus controls Automatic; manual focus ring on lens
• Viewfinder and LCD Colour viewfinder and 2.5-inch or larger colour LCD
• Multimedia Memory card slot for photo capture; MPEG-1 or MPEG-4 video for Web and e-mail

Nice features to look for

• High-definition capture;
• Bluetooth and networking features for wireless on-camera Web and e-mail access;
• digital effects;
• fader;
• spot metering/focusing;
• videoconferencing functionality;
• 16:9 aspect-ratio mode for wide-screen playback;
• remote control;
• touch-screen LCD