Vado - $110
Creative - www.creative.com
Dimensions: 55 x 102 x 13mm (WxHxD)
Weight: 84g

Pros:
- Small, thin and light
- Shoots VGA video
- Rechargable battery

Cons:
- Software offers no editing functionality
- YouTube uploading wonky
- No case or lanyard included

About the size of a thin-format cell phone, the Vado is Creative’s entry into the relatively new ultra small camcorder product category, popularized by the Flip line from Pure Digital Technologies. The styling is very much in line with the Flip Mino which costs $70-$80 more.

At first blush, the Creative Vado, in its brushed gunmetal grey, metallic casing without adornment save the requisite lens and microphone, looks a lot more business than the Flip Ultra with its plastic casing and bright-coloured highlights. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends entirely on perspective.

While the brightly-coloured Flip Ultra screams “fun,” the Vado would be equally at home recording an amusing video of your cats to upload to YouTube (because people are just dying to see that) as it would be shooting a quick house tour in the hands of a real estate agent. That said, the Flip is also available in more demure, monochrome casings while the Vado can also be had in a bright pink casing.

Where the Flip uses two non-rechargeable AA batteries (included), the Creative Vado incorporates a removable rechargeable battery that product literature claims is good for about two hours of shooting. In our tests, the overall use time was closer to 1.5 hours. Still not bad, especially given that when shooting at high quality (640x480) the 2GB of onboard memory can hold one hour of footage, so you’ll likely run out of space before you run out of juice.

Catching the action is simple; it’s literally a point and shoot affair. Point the lens in the general direction of the thing you want to capture, hit the large, square button in the middle of the direction pad cursor keys and that’s it. Unlike the vast majority of digital camera or cell phone video capture, you can zoom in as you record… a favourite move of amateur videographers everywhere.

The Vado incorporates a staged 2x digital zoom which, as with all digital zoom, crops a section of the frame rather than actually zooming in. As such, it’s best avoided unless absolutely necessary. The camera is comfortable to hold and a standard tripod mount on its bottom side makes it perfect for a handlebar or other outdoor gear mount, standard tripod or mini tripod, monopod and the like.

Next: Upload and playback

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