By Becky Waring

Too many great moments are lost on account of not having your camera on hand when it counts.

Happily, a new breed of pocket-size camcorders with up to 1080p HD resolution is redefining how much quality you can fit in your pocket, making it much more likely that you'll have your camera ready at key moments. Their small size also makes them perfect for use when traveling and vacationing, and many can record in formats you can easily upload to the Web for sharing on the road. Of course they make terrific gifts, too!

Here are three brand-new options for every budget:

Flip Mino—The Flip Mino ($180) has been a runaway success among the MySpace and YouTube crowd, thanks to its positively minuscule size (about 2-by-4-by-0.6 inches and 3.3 ounces) and features. It can record one hour of standard definition video on the 2GB of internal memory, has a 1.5-inch LCD and records to the Web-friendly MPEG-4 format. It also has a flip-out USB connector so you can get your shots onto your laptop and email them to your friends or upload them to your site without having to cart around a USB cable.

Kodak Zi6—This cute $180 HD camcorder is an upscale competitor to the Flip with higher video quality and expandable storage in only a slightly larger package (about 2.5-by-4.5-by-0.9 inches and 5 ounces with batteries). It records hours of 720p MPEG-4 video on SD/SDHC flash memory cards (purchased separately), and has a built-in USB connector like the Flip. It also has a 2.4-inch LCD for immediate viewing. Or use the included cables to connect the camera directly to your HDTV. It runs on two standard AA rechargeable batteries and comes with a handy charger.

Sony HD Handycam HDR-TG1—If price is no object, the Sony HDR-TG1 can't be beat for top quality in a tiny package—it weighs in at 10 ounces and is 2.5-by-4.8-by-1.4 inches, double the density of the other two camcorders. While you'll pay for all that miniaturization at $900, the Sony packs an amazing feature set into its slim titanium body: full HD 1920x1080 video resolution, 4-megapixel still photos, 10x optical/20x digital zoom, slow-motion recording, a sleep button with instant on, direct HDMI output to your HDTV, a 2.7-inch flip-out touchscreen and face detection technology that keeps your subject in focus. Storage is via Memory Stick Pro Duo flash cards; a 4GB card good for 25-85 minutes of HD recording (depending on quality level) is included.

Time might seem to fly by but you can at least record a moment of today to look back on for years to come.