Well known for its peripherals, including speakers, headsets and keyboards, Creative has decided to launch a range of pocket camcorders.

The idea is simple: ultra simple products that do just one thing--video-- and do it well.

Even though the majority of still camera and mobile phones now shoot video as well as photos, this new breed of pocket camcorders is bucking the all-in-one trend by sticking to a single function.

Handling

Incredibly light, this camcorder is easily stashed in a pocket, and looks more like an MP3 player than a camcorder at first glance.

It's hard to persuade yourself that it's a camcorder by getting up close, as the lightweight brushed-metal exterior isn't at all like the more robust  casing we've come to expect from some of its more powerful siblings.

The power button is annoyingly situated on one side, and when you switch it on, it becomes clear that there are three very simple things it can do: record, play and delete.

Everything is automatic, and there are two menus that allow you to change the settings.

It's all very straightforward: you shoot the video using a tiny lens that looks like it's come from a mobile phone, record it onto the 2 GB internal memory, and finally play it back on the 2'' LCD screen.


While the battery lasts two hours, you might find yourself a little tied down Sby the fact that you can only charge it using a USB connection to your computer; if you want a spare battery or mains charger, these are available as (expensive) optional extras from Creative.

The Vado's main selling point is that it's a pocket camcorder: something you carry around every day to shoot short clips to share with friends.

To that end, Creative bundles software that helps you upload your content directly to sites like YouTube--but is the video actually good enough to convince anybody to watch it?

Video Quality

Comparing the Creative Vado to two competitors from very different fields was instructive.  Here, it's up against the Samsung Player Addict (left), a mobile phone, and the Samsung W9 (right), a digital camera.

As you can see by comparing the first two images, the Vado's video is a lot sharper than the phone's, but not much of an improvement on the stills camera (final two images).  Not only do some digital cameras shoot in HD (the Vado doesn't), they also have a whole range of other features too.


The Vado will almost certainly do if you need to capture a very short piece of video very quickly, but it really can't match a real camcorder and we can't recommend it for family use.

Finally, to talk numbers, you can record one hour of video in VGA quality or two hours in 'High Quality' mode--but we're still waiting for the HD version of the Vado, which might just be worth it.