Was wondering about picking one up, would anyone have any advice on something, around about £200-£300 max?

It would be cool to get one that would allow the expansion onto XLR and decent audio so I could actually use one for work but that depends on what I can get for my money.

In another thread I posted an example of some underwater footage I shot with a Canon Vixia HF-21.

http://hawaiigoesfishing.com/videos/dive.mov

I am also a big fan of the Canon Vixia HD camcorders. Excellent vid quality, small, light. I like them better than the sony handheld HD cams, because the Canon Vixia's provide for more manual audio control (plus a meter). Used with a low-noise preamp for with an XLR interface, you can get outstanding audio. I've been using the HF100 (which I don't think they make anymore) for quite some time ...

I'll admit that I'm biased toward Canon. I have an A1, HV10, HV30 and HF100. For small and unobtrusive, I really like the HF100. It takes filters and I have a .55 wide angle adapter that works well in good light. I also had 3 cheap JVC standard def SD card cameras that were bulletproof. I thought they were overly contrasty, but I'm partial to the relatively honest images the Canons provide. Lots of choices out there. Look for the one with the features you want. Last I looked, the higher end Canon HF model had a decent amount of manual control.

The small Canon camcorders are all around £500-700 here in the UK. Not within the budget range of the OP. The HF21 is around £800!!

Unless you can add another £150-200 to the budget to get one of these cameras, for £300 you might just pick up a low-end Panasonic or Samsung point & shoot, and that mightn't even have a mic socket.