It's tough, the life of a Craver: here we are, roistering around the Moroccan desert to test out the Canon HF10 high-definition flash memory camcorder, when we'd much rather be at home playing with our robots.

The HF10 shoots 1,920x1,080-pixel footage in AVCHD format. It utilises a 1/3.2-inch, 3-megapixel CMOS image sensor with integrated noise reduction. On top of this is an external sensor that measures distance to the subject. This turbocharges autofocus performance. Meanwhile, the 12x optical zoom lens has a 35mm film equivalent wide angle of 42.9mm.

The sleek lines, chunky shape and rock-solid construction feels reassuringly expensive, benefiting from detail such as the battery's seamless integration with the chassis and the SD card's nifty pop-up cover. Click here for more

Christmas 1989. This Craver had been good all year, and all we wanted was Batman for the Commodore 64. Presents were torn open, jumpers donned with the minumum of fuss, educational books given a cursory examination. But no Batman game. Struggling to cope with a feeling of disappointment that our nine-year-old heart couldn't surpass until the semi-final stage of the World Cup a few months later, we rummaged through the discarded wrapping paper one last time -- and there it was -- Batman, so small we nearly missed it. Unboxing the Panasonic SDR-S7 camcorder is a similar experience.  Click here for more

When our intrepid mobile phone Craver went to Mobile World Congress last month, he took with him a plethora of lightweight gadgets for staying connected on the go. The crisp image quality of the Samsung VP-HMX10 camcorder so impressed the phone wonk that the camcorder wonk is taking it for a spin.

The first thing to impress us was the size and weight of the camcorder. It's ideal for jetting off overseas because it's so light, and it's darn compact, too. Small size isn't everything, but this mini marvel records in 1,280x720-pixel high-definition resolution. Footage is recorded in H.264 format. You can also drop to 720x480-pixel standard definition to save memory, or if you haven't got an HDTV yet. Click here for more

Panasonic has given us the 32GB SDHC card, and clearly sees cheap and plentiful SD cards as the memory format of choice for casual camcorder users. The SDR-SW20 -- pictured -- and SDR-S7 use SD and SDHC cards and could well be worth making room for in your suitcase, next time you head off on your hols.

Both camcorders boast a 10x zoom and a 69mm (2.7-inch) LCD screen. A secondary record button means that they can be held in the standard elbow-bent fingers-pointing-up eye-level camcorder grasp, or in a straight-arm fingers-down grip. Click here for more

If you're bananas about high definition but only have monkeynuts in the bank, the Aiptek AHD200 may be the camcorder for you. It's a budget 720p pistol-grip camcorder that also takes stills and records voice memos.

The 61mm (2.4-inch) LCD 16:9 display flips out to power the camcorder up. The CMOS sensor packs 5 megapixels, so stills look pretty good, although you can't capture images while shooting video. Video is recorded to SD or SDHC cards, with up to 32GB SDHC supported to cope with the large file size of HD video. Click here for more

Toshiba -- perhaps trying to distract us from the newly deceased HD DVD format -- has been throwing new products at us left, right and centre this week. Unfortunately we can't yet tell you about the coolest stuff Tosh has up its sleeve, but we can tell you about the new Camileo Pro HD camcorder.

It's like the handheld Camileo Pro we reviewed last year. But whereas that "put the 'standard' in standard definition", this baby records in 720p hi-def. Not impressed? How about we tell you it costs less than £150? Got your attention? Good. Click here for more

With HD DVD on the ropes, washed-up and dead in the water, the future is Blu -- that's the theory, anyway, and it's certainly Hitachi's vision of the future. So it's a good time for us to get our hands on the Hitachi DZ-BD70E camcorder, which records footage on to Blu-ray disc.

It's a high-definition shooter that records 'Full HD' 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution video. Blu movies are captured on to dinky 8cm Blu-ray discs, although it accepts mini DVDs and also takes SD/SDHC cards. Click here for more

After a great dollop of recently announced new standard- definition Everio camcorders, you may have been wondering whether JVC was going to bring the high-definition goodness to the pocket-friendly Everio range in 2008. The answer is yes and yes, as we meet a brace of hi-def hard drive camcorders: the Everio GZ-HD5 and GZ-HD6.

The two models are, according to JVC, 45 per cent smaller than JVC's previous top-end HD camcorder, the GZ-HD7. They boast three 16:9 progressive-scan CCD sensors, delivering 2.14 megapixels of effective resolution. Click here for more

We got a glimpse of the new Everio camcorders at CES recently, but this week we had a chance to have a proper fiddle about with them.

The range starts with a raft of similarly specced standard- definition models. Barely bigger than a can of pop, the MG330 packs an 800,000-pixel CCD sensor and a 30GB hard disk drive. The Konica Minolta lens stretches to 35x zoom and reaches the 35mm equivalent of 36mm at the wide end. Click here for more

When it comes to acronyms, the world of gadgets falls over itself to clarify things but generally just ends up falling over. Witness the world of camcorders, where models like this here Canon HG10 are HD -- high definition -- and HDD -- hard disk drive. Confusing? Not at all!

The HG10 packs a 1/2.7-inch, 2.96-megapixel CMOS sensor. It shoots 1,920x1,080-pixel HD video, which is downconverted and interlaced to 1,440x1,080-pixel AVCHD footage. You can also capture 3-megapixel stills, or HD frame grabs from your footage Click here for more