New video camera, China?

[prismejon]

Since my girlfriend and I are moving to California after the summer vacation we thought it would be nice to buy a digital video camera. Since I have absolutely zero knowledge of camcorders I was hoping someone could help find some good alternatives :D

We don't need anything too fancy, but it should be relatively small (so that we could carry it with us easily) and it must be possible to connect and transfer the footage to a PC (FireWire?). Since we both are students we don't want to spend much more than $500.

I am going on a class excursion to Beijing, China, next week. So I was wondering if buying a video camera there would be a good idea? Does anyone know if the prices are lower there? Don't most manufacturers give a world-wide guarantee? I would just have to be careful to not buy a pirate product.

Thanks!

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Last I heard, electronic goods from the major Japanese and European brands won't be that much cheaper. However the Chinese might have some interesting devices of their own.

[backpackerx]

My only thought would be how long do you want to waste time in China looking for a camera? You may miss some good memories while you shop. Also, if you don't already have one then your kind of obligated to buy one there that you may not like or trust or else not have any footage of the trip.

When I was shopping around I really liked the Sony trv-22. It was a little bit of an older model but it had a bigger CCD (better) than the trv-33 that updated it.