Creative Labs Vado HD 3rd Gen – 720p HD video

Camcorder — On April 22, 2010 at 4:22 am

Pocket camcorders are selling like hot cakes and Creative has decided to join the bandwagon. It is making new models which costs less that what competiton is offering and also give the same features. We got the Creative Labs Vado HD 3rd Gen in our labs for review which has 720p HD resolution, HDMI jack, 4 gigs of internal memory and all this is packed in to a stylish, compact case which weighs just 3.3 ounces. The cost is $179 which is the same as Kodak Zi8 but cheaper than second-generation Flip Video MinoHD. For the Kodak device, you will have to buy a separate card because there is no internal memory. Color choices for Vado are red, blue(cyan), black, purple and white.

Creative Labs Vado HD 3rd Gen looks attractive but doesn’t feel that durable as compared to the Zi8 which is heavier of second generation iteration of Flip MinoHD which has a metal body. But it is prone to scratches because of the shiny finish. The design of Vado 3rd Generation is pretty basic, you get a two inch LCD with resolution of 640×240 pixels and the only physical button is the record key rest all is controlled by the touch sensitive interface. We liked the touch sensitive buttons, they were quite responsive. On the side, there is an HDMI jack for plugging in this camcorder to a large HDTV but there is no bundled cable for this. On the bottom, there is a flip-out USB connector and threaded tripod mount. The former is used to charging and uploading content to PC. On the top, there is a headphone jack which also takes in external microphones.

The interface is simple and straight forward, you will get well-equipped with the device in just 10-15 minutes. Options for video shooting are HD (720p) and 640×480 VGA resolution. The internal memory is 4 GB and you get to store two hours of video on to it at the highest quality. The built in rechargeable lithium ion battery also takes about two hours to get fully charged.

Creative Labs Vado HD 3rd Gen also has a photo mode but the quality is not that good, it is just tad better than that of camera phones. You don’t get image stabilization or close-up/macro mode but there is a motion detection feature which automatically starts recording when the lens detects motion. There is no optical zoom but you can play around a bit with 2x digital zoom.

Videos are stored in MPEG-4 format instead of original Vado HD’s Advanced Profile MPEG 4 AVI. Video quality is good considering this is a pocket camcorder but when compared with its predecessor and other competitors, colors were less vibrant. On the bright side, the performance in dim lit environments was commendable and gave us sharper picture with less noise.

Creative Labs Vado HD 3rd Gen comes with manual exposure control which isn’t expected in such inexpensive camcorders. All you have to do is press the back and forward buttons when you shoot. We didn’t find this very usefull basically for three reasons, the effect is subtle, you tend to overshoot because the exposure change is slow, and changes on the LCD are impossible to see.

The video quality of such pocket camcorders are pretty much the same when you play the video in small YouTube sized window. The noise and sharpness is pretty much the same. But you will see the differences when you blow the video up to full screen. You cannot compare this camcorders video quality to that of a full-fledged device but when you shoot in 720p, the images can be scaled to larger sizes and the sharpness as well as detail is better than that of VGA resolution clip.

Audio on the Creative Labs Vado HD 3rd Generation is much louder than its predecessor. We would recommend you to stand close to the subject and avoid extraneous noise. The volume and audio quality is both loud and clear. For better recording capabilities, there is a jack for external mic.

For best results with the Creative Labs Vado HD 3rd Generation, you should get a tripod because videos will shake a bit no matter how steady your hand is. Just like most camcorders in this class, this device doesn’t focus on close distance which we missed bitterly. Kodak Zi8 did have a macro mode.

Pros

Attractive looks, two inch LCD, good responsive buttons, easy to use interface, HDMI jack, USB port charging, compatible with Windows and OS X, has support for external microphone.