camcorders

There are probably dedicated forums for this elsewhere, but you lot seem to know your technological onions, so here goes...

I'm after a first-time camcorder. I need to shoot video of my impending first child, and would like to use my laptop running Windows XP to edit clips and short sequences, which I can email, post on Facebook etc or burn to DVD. There's lots of talk on camcorder sites I've looked at of firewire, which this laptop doesn't have. Can I use USB instead?

Also, while I fancy the idea of an HDD camera, I suspect picture quality may be an issue when compared to a miniDV camera of similar price. Can anyone advise on this?

I've got £200-250 to spend on the camera. Any recommendations? I'm thinking along the lines of a Sony DCR-HC47.