I bought a Creative Vado HD last week and here are my thoughts about this device.

  • It’s light weight surprised me
  • Good video quality; terrific considering the price
  • No Image Stabilization – not a real annoyance. None of its current competitors offer this feature either
  • When sitting in a pocket it too easily accidentally turns on and starts recording – I’ve recording 3 hours of random conversations in the past week because of this issue. I don’t mind that it recorded, but it drained the battery when I needed it most. The device comes with a soft pouch – this may help prevent the problem
  • Video plays out-of-the-box on Windows 7 but requires a codec to be installed to play on Windows Vista
  • Nice to have a rechargeable battery
  • It’s small and looks enough like a mobile phone that nobody even pays attention if I walk around recording video in a public space – everyone assumes I’m just using a mobile phone
  • Handled low-light conditions decently
  • Very good at capturing audio
  • Can confirm that will record at least 2 hours of video at the highest quality setting

Here’s the video I took last night during my ice hockey game

image

http://vimeo.com/2940065

 

And some videos from a recent performance by a local band in Seattle

 

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http://vimeo.com/2956477 – Honky Tonk Women

http://vimeo.com/2956681 – American Girl

http://vimeo.com/2956867 – Hard to Handle

 

The versions you see on vimeo is smaller than the 1280x720 AVI video file that the device created. Also the conversion done my vimeo is very slightly “choppier” than the AVI file as it plays on my machine.