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Aiptek AHD200: Pay peanuts, get hi-def monkey

The Aiptek AHD200 is a lightweight 720p camcorder for less than £150. It's light on bells and whistles, but at this price it's perfect for video monkeys who want HD at a knockdown price

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
Expertise Films, TV, Movies, Television, Technology
Richard Trenholm

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.

It is rather light on features, but fortunately it's also light in weight. The plastic frame still feels sturdy and the whole thing is highly pocketable. The record button is on the front if you have an itchy trigger-finger, and the whole thing is light enough and affordable enough to make it perfect for gorilla filmmaking.

Our review is swinging out of the trees any moment now. The Aiptek AHD200 is available right now for a paltry £150. -Rich Trenholm

Update: Read our full Aiptek AHD200 review