I love my Sony Handycam, personally. I bought it on Amazon and paid around 200 for it (an older model, but brand new, of course) and it's the best camera I've ever personally owned. Both video and still pictures are great, the audio is great, I filmed at Christmas with nothing but the tree on for light and the picture turned out well, you can capture photos from your video or take photos, and it's super user friendly. It uses SD cards for memory, which I find nice, and you can upload videos straight to certain sites or transfer to media, etc.
I have a review on Amazon about it, but it doesn't really cover more than I said here. I was actually surprised that the camera got a few bad reviews...like people think that somehow life should be "more high-def" than your eyes are capable of seeing. I don't know, but the video, audio and pics are perfect to my human eyes and ears!!
I know I mentioned how easy it is to use, but I'll elaborate just a bit...you flip open the screen, the camera turns on. You hit one button, you are recording. It has a touch screen for searching through your videos, the zoom is placed in a comfortable spot, and it's the perfect size to hold in the palm of your hand without being too heavy but also without the flimsiness of these modern flip cameras (which it is not.)