I’ve been reading previews and reviews of the new “pocket” cameras from Flip and Kodak, etc. for the past few months. Luckily, there’s something called the Mother/Father-in-law gift fund, so I took the plunge with the Kodak Zi8.
At the current pace of HD cameras, I just couldn’t justify the $1,000 price for a great personal video camera when it will be obsolete in a year and when the Kodak is just . . . wait for it – $150 at Amazon! Full 1080p resolution and image stability – nice additions in my opinion.
I’ll keep this brief (and might post some sample footage later). This is a teat little camera. It performs better than any other camera I’ve had (Sony Hi8 and Sony HDD camera). I use 720p mode and it does great. I especially love the 60 frames per second mode for super clean slow motion. I can’t wait for soccer season with this little guy.
Low light performance is especially good (compared to others I’ve had). I haven’t tried 1080p resolution since I don’t have a TV supporting it, bit it plays back fine from the player.
I’d there is a draw back, it’s that my current computer (Core 2 Duo with decent graphics mind you) won’t play the files smoothly. Theylre quite a chore to decode. I’m betting on future machines to handle this easily (I hope!).
All in all, the portability of this camera along with it’s above par perfoance for the price is a great deal!
Update: I tried VLC player and the videos play like a champ. I also bought the $10 remote – great price and let’s me review from TV easily.
