Excellent choice for beginners, great value

I bought this product because I'd learned that special needs children can learn from watching videos of themselves when caught "being good," i.e., demonstrating appropriate behavior. I'd never used a camcorder before, let alone a digital one, never downloaded one to a computer and certainly never had uploaded one to a website. This camcorder made all of that so easy and intuitively clear that I posted two videos of my grandson on YouTube.com, and then HE took some videos, too. He's six years old and autistic. If a 63 year old grandmother and a 6 year old child with autism can use this first time through, so can you. I also love the small size; when I took a picture of my grandson with Santa Claus the old elf told the child to say "cheese," he thought it was a regular digital camera. It's small enough to carry with you anywhere. It's incredibly simple to plug into your computer's USB port and download the videos. It holds (at least some models) a full hour of videos. And the cost is about a tenth of what the least expensive camcorders were some years ago. Just push the button and shoot, you can watch what you are getting on the screen...there is even a zoom feature. Frankly, I'm not sure why anyone would buy any other camcorder. It even works with both Macs and PCs.