Customers Reviews
2009-11-19
Terrific pocket camcorder that offers greater convenience than AA/AAA battery driven competitors.
It's virtually impossible (as so many of the other reviews for this product demonstrate) to discuss the Vado without drawing some comparisons to the ubiquitous Flip. However, that's been done within these pages, and done well, so I'll limit myself on that front to saying that I own both and it's the Vado I find myself grabbing when I want to catch a brief clip.
At first blush, I have to admit that I was concerned about the design of the camcorder, particularly the lens casing which protrudes about a quarter of an inch out from the otherwise compact body of the unit. I imagined this getting caught on things, making the lens itself more susceptible to scratches and debris -- and that just hasn't been the case. While the unit itself is attractive enough, it ships with a white/cloudy silicone sleeve that fits the unit perfectly. So perfectly it can be a little difficult getting it on. Worth the effort however, as it provides a better grip, worthwhile shock and scratch protection and (by my taste) an improved aesthetic, all without compromising access and ease of use.
There are aspects of the device I wonder about over the long haul. I can't say they'll be problems because I just haven't had it long enough (I've been using it a month), but they're issues worth mentioning. The USB adapter, for example, pulls out from the bottom. When you pull it down and out, you're actually bending the L shaped curve through which it is attached to the unit. Which is to say that it just feels like something that over time is either going to be less willing to just spring back into place (to be fair there's a relatively powerful magnet that hold it in place), or worse, this may be a point of structural failure as the plastic used could conceivably weaken, split and even break over time. That may never happen, it may be a bit of flawless engineering, I can't say -- it was simply an observation I felt worth noting. As previously mentioned, the lens itself sticks out a quarter of an inch, rather ungracefully. Imagine a stack of ten to twelve dimes sitting on top of a narrow deck of cards. In contrast to the Flip (something I opened saying I'd try to avoid, but here we are) which brings the lens outwards with smooth edges that flow back into the unit itself, the cylindrical lens encasement on the Vado meets the body with hard corners, which (again) can and do catch end edge of pockets when being tossed back in. As far as the video quality itself, I think this unit (as all of the current 'microcams' tend to) struggles at times to adapt to light contrasts within a given frame, as well as both high and low light situations.
These are not particularly noteworthy complaints, if they're complaints at all, which is in of itself positive commentary about the unit. While I've seen people cite the audio quality as a negative, I find it exceeds my own expectations for this sort of device. It picks up small sounds and background noises in quiet settings, and in the presence of a dominant source (a conversation, a television set, etc.) does a good job of directionally focusing itself on that.
Battery 'life' is what I want to close with, because I think this is where and why the Vado is so much more appealing for me than the competition. No batteries to deal with like the Flip (I know, 3 times now), it charges through the USB connection (and even offers a fast charge mode, although I have yet to use it) and I suspect that a full charge will hold you almost as long (or perhaps a bit longer) than the 8gb will allow you to record in 720p. That's convenient, efficient and a more desirable power solution, and it's why I've chosen this to be my "go to" pocket camcorder -- one that I happily recommend to others.
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2009-11-19
Ok camera for the price
i have the flip and now this one.
Now granted my flip is not HD so i can not compare that feature of this to the Flip.
I am really trying to like this camera but so far i am not blown away by it.
Honestly for my daily use of capturing my kids i like the Flip better here is why
The VADO is awful in low light which I take plenty of during the day especially in fall/winter time
also the sound capture is not nearly as good as when i have used my Flip.
I do like how easy this is to use . I do like the look but I wish it came with a clear sleeve and not
the milky one which once you put it on can not even see the nice gloss black.
I have not used the HD feature alot on this because so far when I have and tried to view it on my computer
the sound does not mesh with the picture so I know until i change something that is clearly wrong on my computer
it is pointless for me to use it.
This camera is very easy to use even my kids are always using it.
I do not like how i have to charge it on my computer though so i will have to buy the charger and maybe a spare battery too because I do not like when we run the battery down in the middle of recording.
Once i use it more and see how i like the HD part i will update the review.
For a beginner this one would be nice just do not expect it to replace your other video camera
This one is great for the daily spur of the moment shots that you might otherwise miss out on.
Oh another thing i have noticed is the video is a tiny bit shakier than when i use my Flip
again not sure if that is the camera or the operator not used to it yet and comfortable holding it.
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2009-11-19
"Second Generation?"
I had one of the original 8gb vado's, so I was really excited to get this one, and see what they had updated.
I opened it, checked over all the stuff, all the documentation, etc...and it appears that internally this is the exact same camera as the first generation. The outside is now glossy instead of rubberized matte (a downgrade in my opinion), and has red buttons.
On my review of the first generation my biggest pet peeve was that there wasn't any mac support. Well that's kind of fixed. From their site you can now download a mac application that will let you load movies into iPhoto/iMovie. Which works pretty awesome, although it still has to transcode the video, it would be much better if it was native, but this is better than nothing (or having to hack some solution together).
Anyways since this appears to be pricier than the first generation, and it's exactly (besides the color) the same thing, I'd stick with the old one. Compared to other cameras in it's class it usually comes in pretty good, although the flip hd and the creative zi8 usually beat it, the vado is really good at indoors, but not as good outdoors.
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2009-11-18
Comparing the Vado to the Flip, I'd prefer the Vado
There's a huge competition right now between companies vying for consumers' dollars for ultra-portable and relatively cheap hand held camcorders. The Flip hit the market with some buzz and an interesting design paradigm: the USB stick would "flip" out to transfer data to your PC. And the company developed a few different sizes and kinds, with HD and smaller devices to saturate the market, kind of like Apple's cornucopia of iPods. Speaking of Apple, they recently followed suit by adding a camera to their Nanos. Their goal was pretty obvious: why carry a Flip when you could have an iPod that could also work as a camcorder (albeit in non-HD) in a pinch? Then there's this little beast, the Creative Labs Vado.
I've had a couple different versions of the Flip to work with and one of my big complaints about that device is that it's too bulky. When you consider that in one pocket, I need to put my cell phone, the other pocket holds my keys, the last thing I want is yet another device, taking up space. The Vado, in comparison, is roughly half the width of the Flip Ultra 2nd Generation and fits more comfortably in my pocket. It controls much the same way, giving you a minimal amount of controls. I personally prefer the USB portion of the flip to the Vado, which is more like a rubber, bendy arm than something more sleek like the Flip. In fact, I really don't like the USB arm for the Vado because of the way it extends on the bottom of the device. It has a kind of pull tab to get it out, which means that you can stand the Vado up like you can with...well, pretty much every other pocket camcorder. The screen on the Vado is the same size (2") but the actual look of it is very nice and crisp. I love the color scheme.
Onto the more important things, the Vado will take films at 720P resolution. This means that instead of having the typical 480 resolution, you'll have more pixels which means a bigger presentation when you watch it on your computer. That said, the actual quality of the video is sometimes circumspect. In regular, good lighting, the picture is very good and crisp. In lower lighting (like bars or clubs), the quality drastically goes down but I've found that to be true of any of these cheaper devices. While I wish the zoom was better than a mere 2X digital zoom (some other competing products, like ones from Sony have a 4X optical), it's still decent at normal ranges. With 8 GB of memory, the Vado will hold up to 2 hours of 720p video or you can switch to VGA resolution and get up to 8 hours. It also comes with a replaceable and rechargeable lithium battery (instead of AAs). I haven't messed with the editing software included because I've heard stability and ease-of-use problems with it. Instead, I simply copy the videos from my camera and use other software programs to do my editing.
Truthfully, the thing you have to keep in mind when looking at these types of products is that you're not getting a "real" HD camcorder. If you're looking to take great video at high, crisp resolutions to look more like the HD you'd expect from a Blu Ray, these are not the devices to get. However, if you're like me and you're looking for a good, easily carried device to whip out when trying to catch someone singing at karaoke or making a fool of themselves with their manmade slip `n slide, then I'd recommend the slimmer Vado over the Flip.
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2009-11-16
Software wants $20 bucks for real verson, but I love the camera!
Creative Labs Vado HD 8 GB (Black Gloss with Maroon Accents) has really done what I asked it to do, every time. I was looking for a small video camera to take pictures of my newborn daughter. We got it and took lots of videos of her playing in the bath, making baby noises, and smiling at her mom while she sang or read to her. I really was not looking for something to take more than a minute of video at a time as I wanted to post it online on Facebook. I already have a professional type cannon still digital camera, so a camera with video was not something I was looking for. When I got it I really did not understand how little it really was. This thing is smaller than my blackberry! It takes great videos and loads them onto my computer so fast that I was shocked! I tried to edit some videos and found that the program wanted me to pay an extra $19.99 or something like that to edit more than three videos together. I can't believe that a $[...] camera (I paid $199.99!) wants you to pay extra for software. Every review on here says that the software is awful so I didn't pay the twenty bucks to find out. One nice thing is that it can be used on any computer that has USB! It did come with a nice cover that has kept it safe in my pocket and once when I dropped it. When I carry it in my pocket it sometimes get the lens dirty so I have started to keep q-tips in the rubber case to clean the lens. As far as low light shooting, I am a photographer so I just accept that as a limitation of the camera, and I make sure that we always have good light when I am shooting. Long and short I love the camera, but I wonder why it even has software that comes with it, why the $20 more for the unlimited software?
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