I paid $300 for this camera the other day, and so far I am completely satisfied with it...Well that's good, other than the price difference like you mentioned...Better than miniDVDs, and a hell of a lot sturdier than an HDD cam...
forget the exact details now but when I was shopping around for some last year it was a really good deal...For those looking for a good deals on blank MINI DV tapes I recommend checking out Costco...They have a bunch of TDK tapes for a good price...
If you are looking for a good camera for making movies etc on a budget this is a good choice...That's a good price for a new one as well...It's smaller than I thought it would be, decent sized screen, good battery life, easy to recharge the batteries and easy to put in new tapes...