I'm gift shopping for someone who's interested in a small video camcorder. She already has a compact Canon digital camera that can do basic 640X480 video, so this should be an upgrade over that- but without getting too expensive.

Ideally it would be something that has decent video quality, is relatively easy to use, has memory expansion beyond the built in storage, shoots in a format that I would be able to download / copy and edit on a PC, direct output (HDMI or whatever) to a TV, some optical zoom, and stereo audio. Any other nice features would be good, too...

Naturally, I was drawn to the "Flip" type cameras. For examples, the Samsung HMX-U20 and similar.

Can anyone make any suggestions or recommendations? OR... If there might be a more traditional non-Flip type camera out there that doesn't get too much more expensive I might look at that too. Thanks.