Creative Vado

The basics

Creative Vado is a pocket video cam that is around the size of a regular mobile phone. It weighs 84 g, and can shoot at 640 x 480 and 30 frames per second. The video cam has a solid build with dimensions, 100 x 55 x 16 mm. It also has low-light sensitivity at 3.8V/lux-sec, and 2x digital zoom.

The good

Bamboozled by buttons and dazzled by dials? The Vado is aimed at users for whom ‘point and shoot’ needs explanatory graphics and an 0845 helpline number. There are no complex options or choices – just hit Record to capture up to 2 hours of video (it has 2GB of internal memory) and Playback to watch clips on its 2-inch screen. A built-in USB cable lets you download to Mac or PC in moments, and then upload to YouTube seconds later. The Vado weighs a feather-light 84g.

The bad

Build quality is more plastic than fantastic. In fact, the Creative feels cheaper and weaker than most mobiles – and its smeary (but colourful) video is little better than a cutting-edge cameraphone. Audio is muffled and indistinct, and be warned, there isn’t even a real (optical) zoom on board.

The bottom line

A camcorder that costs less than a couple of Blu-ray discs should be a no-brainer, but even at this low price, the crazy-cool Vado feels a few pixels short of a memory card.