I remember this as the favorite rhetorical question of my late high school physics teacher. He would open and end the school year with similar questions. This one he employed to illustrate the notion of vacuum, in particular the fact that sans drag and air resistance, all objects will fall with a common rate of descent.

Getting hold of the PocketDV AHD200 Pro digital camcorder from Taiwan-based Aiptek Inc. brought this high school reminiscing to mind for no particular reason. Maybe it was because of the device’s lightness. Aiptek’s most advanced digital camcorder so far (according to the company’s news release) is so light users cannot be faulted for handling it the way they would an egg, fearing the device might readily break into several smaller camcorders should it, heaven forbids, fall.

Honestly, I never was able to overcome this feeling or state of mind during the time the PocketDV AHD200 Pro was with me. I am not complaining though, after all in those times when one is doing marathon "video-taking" sessions, it can never hurt if the camcorder one uses is extremely light like the Aiptek is.

Lightweight as it is, the PocketDV AHD200 Pro comes heavily loaded with lots of useful and helpful features consumers have come to expect from higher priced high-end models, such as those offered by the more popular Japanese manufacturers. All these at a fraction of the cost of the pricier models.

With a price tag way down below 10,000 of on-steroids pesos, this Taiwanese camcorder can capture and play high-definition video, or 1,280 x 720 pixels if one wants to be more technical about it. Moreover, this hybrid also takes pictures at resolutions up to 12 megapixels.

But is it good? Does it perform at par with its competitors that come with more royal lineage? Or does the PocketDV AHD200 Pro exist mainly to reinforce the notion that low-cost products come with cheap performance?

Well, the time I spent (intimately, at times, brutally) with the unit has convinced me that in almost all aspects, the PocketDV AHD200 Pro can rock just as hard as the others can. Maybe even harder, because despite its lowly status, it seems to try harder to please, and one cannot be faulted for doing so.

This Aiptek toy feels lighter than the other camcorders mainly because of its plastic covering, which aside from cutting a considerable portion of its weighing-scale presence also helped the manufacturer in its cost-cutting drive. Of course, a downside of this go-with-plastics policy is the toy-from-Divisoria feel that comes with the device. You know, like those toys from China, which one normally finds among the wares of our favorite sidewalk vendors. And quite easily and promptly breaks in a day or two after purchase.

Well, plastic or no plastic, the PocketDV AHD200 Pro redeems itself with a long list of user-friendly features including an easy to navigate Menu and easy to grip configuration. Out of the box, the unit is truly a point-and-shoot camcorder. (Note: The owner’s manual says, however, that one must charge the unit’s battery for at least eight hours before using it the first time.)

Equipped with a 5-megapixel CMOS, this camcorder shoots videos and photos in MOV and JPEG formats and captures sound as WAV files. The quality of video and photos is good enough, comparable with those done by higher-end competitors. I only wish the unit has a data storage space bigger than the internal 6MB that it presently has.

This shortcoming, however, is more than made up for by its support for up to 32GB SDHC.

Another issue I have with this camcorder is the location of the built-in flash. Each time I would hold it to shoot; one of my fingers would always end up covering the flash, rendering it useless. Anyway, after about a dozen times of these misaligned finger incidents, I finally got the hang of it and from then on was keeping my fingers clear of the point where the flash resides.

While it may not be known as the best camcorder ever, the PocketDV AHD200 Pro is certainly the strongest contender within the price range it occupies. Of course, the product has some areas for improvement, but then again, with its tag price, this camcorder is just fine the way it is right now. Asking for more might be deemed too much, even heretical.

In these days of golden rice when food and other basic necessities are almost worth their weight in gold, consumers cannot be faulted for seeking ways and means to cut their expenses and make their hard-earned money last longer, way longer than it normally does. It gladdens the heart to know that there are still products like the PocketDV AHD200 Pro that, without breaking the consumers’ back with high prices, still allow them to enjoy life.

And in the case of this camcorder, record life’s events for posterity. Who knows, maybe when all these hardships are gone and over, we will look back at what we are going through right now with eyes less saddled with hardships, and smile as we recall how we survived all that.