Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Creative launched their 3rd generation Vado video camera yesterday, selling at $179.  The new version is glossy, better looking and addresses a list of issues that plagued the first two designs.  Is it ready to be added to your holiday wish list?

Creative touts their ease of use for the Vado and previous Vado’s featured a HDMI out port along with a wide angle lens.  The third generation updates the device with a microphone jack (as complaints about the original audio recording were common), improved video in low/high light recordings, headphone output, motion detection to activate recording based on movement, PC and Mac compatibility and still image capture.

The only thing keeping me from recommending this video camera is memory.  The 3rd gen Vado comes with 4GB and no expansion slots.  In this day of relatively inexpensive SD cards featuring up to 32GB of space, I am uneasy about being locked into just 4.  Even a 4GB SD card gives me the freedom to swap out cards and keep going without stopping to download and clear memory on the device.  I see myself on a Caribbean island, wedged between some giant rocks filming whales in the setting sun when a out-of-memory message pops up.  Is it just me that worries about these things?

If you can live with 4GB, check out the new Vado, it is a fine looking device.

Press release: [Creative] Product page: [Creative]