i have a SONY DVD HANDYCAM DVD703E, the price is on the higher side, but it is worth it.
what do u r friend plan to use your hanycam for i.e Professional use or Home use [home movies]. Becoz the recording format in tape media is AVI [if i am not wrong], which is much more easier to edit as compared to DVD format which is mpeg2 , in which there will be a slight drop in the quality of the film after u edit it, though all the major software do that, personally i didnt see a quality drop in the film, and the tape media cannot be used more then 5 times[some site say that as 10] becoz there will be quality drop in film media and u will get drop frames. whereas dvd-rw can be used repeatedly if u handle the disk properly, movies and still can be stored in the same disk, whereas in hc32 u have buy a memory stick for that.