Full Review

Creative continues to update its Vado line of pocket camcorders with better features and design. This Vado HD, in its third generation is the most impressive of all the Vados we have seen so far.

Design & Features
The third generation Vado HD is compact and it resembles the older generation iPod Classic in terms of design. The body has dimensions of 3.9 x 2.2 x 0.6 inches which is just as compact as most smartphones. It has a nice glossy white finish at the back and front. The build quality is good but we wished Creative had included a rubberized protective case like they did with the second generation Vado HD.

The Vado HD employs touch sensitive controls and the button arrangement is friendly but the touch sensitive buttons make it easy to accidentally execute unwanted functions. Except for this issue, there is not much to complain about the design. The 2-inch screen is a bit on the smaller side but offered good visibility even under bright sunlight. The power button and a 3.5mm headphones jack (that also acts as a stereo mic-in or AV-out)  are on the top. The sides have buttons for switching shooting modes (video or image) or accessing the menu (by holding it down for a few seconds) and to delete files. There is a miniHDMI port and a flexible USB cable, features which have become common for pocket HD camcorder these days. An HDMI cable is also included in the package and there is also a tripod mount at the base.

What makes the Vado HD special is its wide angle lens which lets us see more in the frame than what we could with the Kodak Zi8. It has a manual exposure control and motion detection feature which lets the camera start recording as soon as it detects movement, a nifty feature indeed. However, it does not have macro mode  and image stabilzation like the Kodak Zi8 has  but both have fixed focus lens.

The Vado HD came with 4GB of internal memory which is good enough to hold 1hour of video in its HD+ mode, 2 hours for the HD mode and 4 hours in VGA mode.  Unfortunately, it records only videos of 1280x720p resolution at 30 fps while the much cheaper priced Kodak Zi8 pocket camera records at full HD (1920x1080p) at the same frame rate. Images captured are also fixed at 1280x720 pixels.The software Vado Central came pre-installed on the device and it is possible to run off the device with no option to install on the PC. It has option for uploading media to sites like YouTube, Facebook , KinKast and Photobucket.

Performance

Compared to the Kodak Zi8, the Vado HD’s wide angle lens definitely had an edge in terms of fitting more subjects in the frame.

The Vado HD started up within 3 seconds and it responded quite quickly to most operations. It is very easy to use and the screen is also crisp and vibrant and has good visibility even under sunlight. One complaint though, is the absence of thumbnail or list view option for recorded videos as we were restricted to browsing them one file at a time. The rest is just a point and shoot affair.

Outdoor videos looked good with decent frame rates. Compared to the Kodak Zi8, the Vado HD’s wide angle lens definitely had an edge in terms of fitting more subjects in the frame. Clips we recorded especially with fast moving subjects had decent frame rates and they looked much smoother than what we captured with either the Kodak Zi8 or the second generation Vado HD.  However, the Kodak Zi8 captured more details and more vivid colors.  Low light shots using the Vado HD looked very clean for a pocket camcorder and noise was barely visible.  However, the images lacked sharpness and details.  Here, it scores over Kodak Zi8 which shows more details and colors but also shows more noise. Overall, the Kodak Zi8 offered better details and warmer colors while the Vado HD had smoother videos with lesser noise. Audio captured using the onboard microphone was sharp and clear but for better sound quality, an external microphone is also supported. Still image quality is of average quality and of low resolution which is disappointing. The internal battery lasted roughly around 2 hours which is satisfactory.

At Rs. 14,999, the Creative Vado HD is expensive especially when you can get full HD capable pocket camcorder like Kodak Zi8 at Rs. 9,999.

Bottom Line

Good for low light and has impressive wide angle lens but too expensive for its rather standard offerings.