You don’t want to plunge blindly into the thicket of the camcorder market without a sense of where you’re going. Here are several things you’ll need to keep in mind to help narrow your choices.

Price

Camcorders span the range from $149 for a low-end model to $1,500 or more for advanced products. Within this range, the $800 mark is typically a dividing line between the high end and the rest of market. You can still buy a quality camcorder for considerably less than $800, but most of the advanced technologies will be introduced at higher price points.

Your Lifestyle

Think carefully about how you plan on using your camcorder. Do you want to carry it with you at all times to record spontaneous moments, or is it mostly for special occasions? Do you want to share your video far and wide on YouTube, or watch it in widescreen splendor on your HDTV? Do you fancy yourself the next Steven Spielberg, or do advanced features bore you?

Pocket Versus Full Featured

Pocket camcorders, like the Flip from Pure Digital,Kodak’s Zx1 and Creative’s Vado, are all the rage these days. They’re very compact, extremely easy to use and the video is easily transferred to the computer and Web. They’re inexpensive, too, usually falling below $200. These benefits have motivated a fair number of shoppers to opt for pocket models, but they do come with trade-offs.

The lenses used in these camcorders are considerably inferior to the ones found on full featured camcorders. In fact, one way to distinguish between a pocket camcorder and a full featured model is the optical zoom specification. If the camcorder does not offer an optical zoom lens, or image stabilization, it’s likely a pocket model. These camcorders also tend to struggle in low light environments.

See Guide to Pocket Camcorders for more information. And check out our picks for the Best Pocket Camcorders in the market today.