Review: Creative Vado HD
Camera Design
The camera itself is a very sleek, refined piece of technology. The only downside, however, is the lens, which does stick out from the front. Luckily, the lens is firmly mounted and feels solidly attached to the rest of the camera. The body of the camera has a solid, but hollow feel to it. Whilst holding it, the camera did feel solid and very well made, but almost too light for the size of it. The metallic ring around the outside gives a nice contrast to the stoic black of the body, and works well with the design of the rest of the body. If the user has moderately greasy fingers, the device becomes visible with them, though only at certain angles. Generally, though, it felt nice and at home in my hands.
The button design on the back is extremely simplistic- only two buttons in addition to the d-pad are visible from the backside. The power button is intelligently hidden in the right side, and it’s very difficult to power on the device by accident. I feel like they should have added a dedicated settings button, instead of requiring the pressing or both the play and trash buttons to access the menu. But the two buttons on the left are very symmetrical with the d-pad on the right and make the back simple to use. The speaker is in a good spot, but it’s very underpowered and weak in comparison to the ZEN X-Fi’s. One of my favorite features of the camera is the front light, next to the lens. It glows red when recording, which is something that I definitely would have overlooked when designing a budget camera.
The ports are placed in the typical places, with the USB flexi-cord on the bottom and the video ports on the left hand side. The USB flexi cord is accompanied by the tripod mount on the bottom. I don’t really care much for the flexi-cord, as it’s awkward to use when not using it on a flat surface where the camera can lay sideways. On my tower PC, where the USB ports are on top, it sits funnily and occasionally falls out. That’s what the extension cord is for, but it’s bothersome to have to go find it.
I did not perform a comprehensive battery test. However, Michael at epiZENter.net did, and he also made a spiffytacular graph, which you can see here. When I used the camera, I found that battery life was not an issue whilst using the device on a daily basis.
Score: 88/100- It’s not a pretty ZEN. It’s a solidly built, lightweight camera and it shows. Creative’s design department went with the professional, cold look. While it definitely doesn’t shine like the glossier MinoHD and Zi6, the relatively fingerprint proof casing seems to have a more professional business about it. The material also seems like it will hold up better in the long run.
- Introduction
- Specifications
- Included Schwag
- Design
- User Interface
- Video Quality
- Video Quality 2, Audio Quality
- Software
- Conclusion
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Mary
