I figured out that full HD resolution of 1920x1080 is too much for me. So I am looking for a camcorder that can provide 1280x720. There is a very cheap Aiptek camcorder, but it has poor optical zoom of 3. Is there anything better than Aiptek, but still cheaper than a full HD camcorder ?

As far as I know, there are only a handful of camcorders that do 720p with Aiptek being one of them. JVC had a couple of them out with 10X zoom some time ago you may want to check Ebay. They were the GR-HD1/GY-HD10.

Not sure what you mean by 1080 being "too much", but resolution wise you're typically getting better better video because of the higher resolution. If you're referring to editing then you may want to look again at JVC and their HD Everio line, they do 1080 but not with MPEG-4/AVC they use old fashioned MPEG-2 which is a lot easier to edit on most computers than the other.

Again, if you want to up the $, then look no further than....JVC. LOL They have pro an semi-pro 720p cams they start off around the $4000 range. For about the same price you can get a Panasonic VX200 or for $2000 more you can get a Sony PWM-EX1 that does both native 720p and 1080p.

Troy