Original YT playout date: 7 February 2010
Duration: 22:17

“This is not your usual unboxing video. Firstly, as you’d expect from me, it’s far more idiosyncratic and chaotic, and I didn’t bother really to cut out the superfluous stuff. Secondly, I had to post produce and render using HD throughout, of course, or the difference in the two cameras would not have shown up. Hence this film is 1002 MB. That’s when I sent it, probably they’ll compress it for the flv, even in HD.

Please note that if you want to go into the field and take the full 8 hours that VGA quality offers, one battery won’t do that, you’ll need probably a couple of batteries, so that you can recharge them on an older Vado while working with the new one. They can only be recharged off a USB source in the Vado.

The video shows the quality differences between the two cameras in a fairly low light setting. The difference as I now know is more pronounced in a full daylight setting. If there is continual very low light, I’d say the old Vado actually seems to show the action more clearly. The HD Vado kind of gives up at a very low light setting, which would be about half the amount of light in this setting.

I hope that this helps gadget lovers to get a good idea of what they’ll be getting for their money if they invest in one of these. On balance, I recommend it, but it still has room for improvement.

BTW You can produce much nicer stills in the on-board software than you could in the old Vado, so I’m no longer moaning about the absence of the stills option. If you want to take someone’s photo, take a few seconds of film and pick the best frame in the Vado software or other post-prod software.”
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