Stick with miniDV for your price range because HDD and DVD are both horrible and here's why
HDD: When an image is recorded onto the harddrive of your camcorder it compresses the image and in return the image quality becomes degraded. Also, some programs may have conversion issues with the file format the camcorder saves to, so it's not exactly universal.
DVD: With DVD's you must spend a lot of money getting the disks and when you record, it shows great on the camcorder but when you have to start recording it on the DVD, it compresses the image A LOT and so you get this subpar, poor quality image and sometimes the DVD will not write properly and so lets say you film for an entire hour and then finalize your disk (make it viewable on DVD players) sometimes it will not finalize correctly and then you loose your ENTIRE disk.
So stick with miniDV. It's reliable, its storable and miniDV camcorders are cheaper because its an already existing technology which has been around for years.
As for cheap camcorders, I have been using a Canon ZR500 and ZR800. Both are EXCELLENT cameras with tons of options such as adjusting how bright your image is (shutter speed), your white balance, tons of built-in effects and an external mic jack so you can plug in what ever microphone you want.
To see it in action I have made a video on youtube showing the image quality this camcorder is capable of producing:
YouTube - Canon ZR500 & 800 test :: Los Cerritos