Comparing the Top Shoot and Share Camcorders

Back in 2004, with a wedding and subsequent honeymoon to Paris in the cards, I invested in what, at the time, was one of the sleeker camcorder models at the time--the MiniDV tape-based Canon Optura 30. It was great for the ceremony, but the "smaller" profile Optura was still a bit of a lunk to haul around Paris (measuring 5.3 x 3 x 3.2 inches and weighing 1.3 pounds), and it got left behind in our apartment the longer the trip went on. And to this day, we still have properly polished or shown to family and friends--the whole point of having a camcorder--due to the hours required to download MiniDV tape to our Mac's hard drive and subsequently edit it in iMovie.

A little over 5 years have passed, another trip to Paris is on the horizon in the spring (with toddler in tow), and the Optura's in mothballs (though taken out briefly for the photo shoot at the right). But I'm confident our family will be getting near daily video updates of our adventures thanks to one of the new breed of pocketable high-def camcorders and a little thing I like to call YouTube.

I bought the first generation of the Flip MinoHD last holiday season and have been quite happy with its resolution and audio pick-up. At the time of my purchase, Flip was pretty much sole owner of the pocket camcorder market, but nowadays there's a bevy of options available attempting to fulfill the market that Flip first mined as well as a second generation of the ultra-slim MinoHD (a slightly fatter Flip UltraHD is also available).

Below we've listed three of the top pocket high definition camcorders with their main specs for your comparison shopping pleasure (you can also see the full lineup of shoot and share camcorders here). Also be sure to check out Gizmodo's recent ultimate pocket camcorder comparison, though I'll let you click through to see takes the top spot. Other review roundups include PC World and TechEBlog.

Creative Labs Vado HD (2nd Generation) Max resolution: 720p at 30 fps Image stabilization: No Digital zoom: 2x Storage: internal 8 GB in black, 4 GB in white PC connection: integrated USB Video output: HDMI and AV Mic input: No Video file format: H.264 AVI Still photos: No Screen size: 2 inches Battery life: approx. 120 minutes Weight: 3.52 ounces Dimensions: 3.9 x 2.2 x 0.6 inches

Flip MinoHD (2nd Generation) Max resolution: 720p at 30 fps Image stabilization: No Digital zoom: 2x Storage: internal 8 GB PC connection: integrated USB Video output: HDMI Mic input: No Video file format: H.264 Still photos: Yes Screen size: 2 inches Battery life: approx. 120 minutes Weight: 4.1 ounces Dimensions: 3.94 x 1.97 x 0.66 inches

Kodak Zi8 HD Max resolution: 1080p at 30 fps; 720p at 60 fps Image stabilization: Yes (electronic) Digital zoom: 4x Storage: SD/SDHC memory cards up to 32 GB PC connection: integrated USB Video output: HDMI and AV Mic input: Yes Video file format: H.264 Still photos: Yes Screen size: 2.5 inches Battery life: approx. 90 minutes Weight: 3.9 ounces Dimensions: 2.4 × 4.5 × 0.9 inches

For more on shopping for the right pocket camera, check out this learning guide put together by the Camera & Photo team.

--Agen G.N. Schmitz

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