Amazing for the price and size!

Pros:

- 8GB of internal memory to store 2 hours of video on the highest quality setting
- Wide angle lens
- Decent color reproduction
- Comfortable soft rubber feel
- High quality video for the price and size
- Compact and light weight (convenient to take almost anywhere)
- Easy to copy movies to computer (built in USB connector)
- Comes with USB extension cable
- Comes with HDMI cable to play videos on your HDTV directly from the unit
- Easy to chop up the videos using Vado Central (comes free with the unit)
- Microphone picks up audio much better than expected (can here sounds from every direction)
- Extremely simple to use
- Comes with free H.264 video codec, but I prefer ffdshow-tryouts on SourceForge for better performance and customization

Cons:

- Fixed lens with 2X digital zoom only (no optical zoom)
- Does not come with a lanyard
- Optional lanyard is a bit difficult to install
- No expansion slot for an external memory card
- Microphone has a low volume feedback noise in recordings (more noticeable in quiet scenes)
- Battery life states 2 hours, but realistically it's more like 1 hour 40 minutes
- Unit will sometimes freeze when plugging into the computer (must remove battery from unit to get it working again)
- Video playback from unit to HDTV causes audio to slightly distort on high pitch sounds (does not occur when playing back from computer)
- Very bright lights such as the sun will cause skin tones to be slightly yellow
- Free H.264 codec did not work on an older laptop running Windows XP Home, but worked fine on a newer computer running Windows XP Professional
- Tripod connector on unit can easily be broken if tripod is over tightened (due to plastic tripod connector on unit)

Comments:

This camcorder is definitely worth the money. I recommend using the clear skin which comes with it to help prevent it from getting scuffed up. Also, don't forget to upgrade the firmware and install the Vado Central application update on the unit.

I recommend purchasing a small carry case with belt loop, lanyard, composite A/V cable (unit comes with HDMI cable), digtal camera tripod, and spare battery. All of these items can be picked up fairly cheap on eBay.

If you have the clear skin installed, be sure to push the composite A/V cable in all the way. Otherwise you will receive garbage on the screen.

I only had the unit freeze a few times when plugging into my computer running Linux. This hasn't occur yet when plugging into my system running Windows.

Overall, I am very impressed by this unit.

Creative Vado HD review

For ease of use A+++++ pretty simple to hit the on and off button.

The sounds microphone can pick up some extra noise so in a large lobby area for instance the person standing a few feet away may sound like they are 15 feet away but when that same person is standing in your kitchen the microphone picks up the sound wonderfully.

editing the video seems to have some challenges but uploading an unedited video to youtube is about a 3-5 min process depending on how much you do to edit or put captions on the vid once it gets uploaded to you tube.

overall amazing little product that is not perfect and does not have all the features of a cam corder if that is what you are looking for then stick with that. if you like point, shoot, upload and move on then this is hard to beat.

The wide angle lens is much superior to the flip or kodak ones in my opinion.

the instruction manual with it is written in .000001 font so you might need a microscope to get it to a place where humans can view it. Ants probably love this font. Mabe they were beeing green by eliminating 10 pages and shrinking it down to 2 small pages.

The USB cable that is comes with is simple to connect or use the USB on the unit itself and it automatically pops up the basic screen to choose and upload the vid's - simple easy basic - not going to make big time movies with it but sure is better than anything you or i had ever paid a lot more money for in our lifetime.

one thing i am just now experimenting with is the feature that allows you to record in HD or non HD mode (vsg i think) so far it seems to not be real noticable when the video is viewed on you tube as that viewing window (or a web site) is usually a couple inches wide anyway so not a big deal.

Creative Vado Pocket Camcorder

I've been collecting and trying out these small flash camcorders ever since I became aware of the RCA Small Wonder 2 years ago.This model, by Creative, isn't a HD model, but the rechargeable battery,larger viewing screen,built -in 2 hour memory and attractive,slim design made it a worthwhile addition to my collection. And let's not forget the amazing price is was selling for on Ebay!Now that I'm completely hooked on this great online service, I can locate and try many more products that I would otherwise have to skip, since I can't always expect a store sale to happen, or even find some of these items being sold where I live.Who can resist a fun, amazing service like this? Oh, and these products make awesome gifts,too.

Vado HD - best niche recorder so far

The Creative Vado HD video camera is an great pocket cam for travel and for making YouTube-style videos. It is one of, if not the, slimmest flash-based cameras, and quite light, meaning that it can be kept in a jeans pocket with no problems. It boots up in just a couple of seconds, which allow it to be useful for spontaneous video capture. The video quality isn't excellent but it is very good, quite a bit better than the best cellphone and more than sufficient for online video posting. Video capture is 2+ hours, which is as long as the battery life, and longer than I have yet needed. The worst part of the camera is its inability to use its built-in software with Mac OS X, and that iMovie can't directly work with its files (although that's more Apple's failure, but still you can do it with a Flip Ultra HD), and the little tab on the bottom makes it unable to just stand upright on the table (I got a little tripod which fixes that). The best part of the camera is the size, super easy to hold in one hand while driving or talking, or anything else. I bought the Vado just before the new Flip HD came out, but even still I would get this one again. I would look for a price of ~$145-160 for this (5/09) to make a good bargain.

Vado Pocket Camcorder

Really nice product that I bought for my wife. I chose this one as the USB is on board and charges the camera with it's lithium battery. Two hour life on a charge. The USB is also how you upload to your computer. Interface is VERY nice for my wife as she found it super easy to use. It is exactly as described, point and shoot, simplicity itself. We chose to stay in the high definition filming mode which cuts your recording time in half, to only one hour. But for what we use it for that's perfect. For the price we paid for it you cannot compare it as all of the stores around us wanted at least $159. or so for a base line camcorder like this one.