Creative Vado HD (3rd Gen)

usability, price, portability, size, image quality

zoom, reliability, viewfinder

83% of the reviews on Amazon.co.uk give this product a positive rating.

usability, design, portability, price, image quality

reliability, zoom, connectivity

85% of the reviews on Amazon.com give this product a positive rating.

As before, the lens is fixed, but this time it sticks out of the device a little more, which hinders pocket friendliness slightly. There is no optical zoom available, just a 2x digital one. So the image does get a little more blurry when zoomed,...

The video is compressed fairly aggressively down to 4Mbits/sec in HQ mode, and 2Mbits/sec in SP mode. Audio is also only recorded at 14kHz with 4-bit sampling and a 56Kbits/sec data rate. But the Vado has a healthy 2GB of flash memory on board. At the...

Good quality video ; Stills capture ; Lovely build ; Removable battery

LCD screen could be better

It's portable ; It's easy to use ; It's quick and responsive

Very expensive ; Frame rate could be better

If the Vado HD was cheaper we'd be able to see the merits in buying it, but at £200 it's a big no-no

Sharp picture ; Large LCD viewscreen ; Small and compact

Tacky appearance

A fantastic little gadget

External mic option, compact, HDMI cable included, noisy low light performance

Video quality not fantastic, design not that exciting, no macro mode

Creative at launch claimed that "The design looks so cool people will stop you on the street and ask you where you got it". They obviously haven't seen the new metal-bodied Flip Mino HD, which beats this hands down in the looks department.

Video quality, HDMI connection, easy to use, on-board software link to YouTube

No AV cable supplied, a little pricy

The on-board software is simple to use giving you playback options and letting you do some basic editing after the installation of an additional plugin. You don't have to use the software, you can just open up the folder and extract the AVI files that...

Screen size, option to step down quality to increase memory usage, li-ion battery, simple

Software almost pointless, won’t stand-up on its own, no lens cover, no TV connection supplied

The software supporting the Vado does not compare to the offering from Flip and practically serves no purpose for those on their home computer; granted, those in internet cafes or on the move might depend on those sharing options (although we could not...

If you don’t intend to put your camcorder through rigorous extremes, the Creative Vado HD is probably the candybar camcorder to choose. In particular, we loved its exposure control settings, wide-angle lens and ability to cope low-light levels.

We really liked the Creative Vado HD camcorder’s design, especially the tactile silicon rubber body armour that prevents butterfingers. We were also pleased to find an HDMI output for which the associated cable is supplied, and the option to shoot in...