Which is the better camcorder?

Creative Vado HD camcorder Vs. Flip Ultra HD which is better?

• Ok what is better the Createive Vado HD camcorder or the Flip Ultra HD camcorder (not the Flip Mino!) Please i need help. which camcorder is better?

• Answer:

  hey. I bought a vado HD which arrived from amazon june 4, and my friend bought a flip ultra HD from amazon, which arrived june 3. he paid $188 and I paid $180, but amazon had a special promotion where I got $50 credit, so essentially the vado came out to $130. anyway, we both shot and compared video side by side at work. first off, the sound on the flip wins hands down. stereo vs mono, stereo will always win. I thought the indoor video on his flip was also sharper with more vibrant colors. the walls in the background of the vado video seemed somewhat blurred/pixilated, whereas the walls in the flip video seemed sharper. however, the vado has a wide angle lens which was able to capture a larger area. if we stood side by side and I took a step forward, my vado would capture a larger area than his flip. I also felt like his flip took better video quality outdoors as well. overall, I think I give the nod to the flip in terms of video quality. the video quality on the vado can also be downgraded if you want to save memory. the flip has one HD mode and the vado has 3 modes (vga and 2 HD modes). the vado also shakes considerably compared to the flip. I held my hand as steady as possible, and the video I took was still noticeably shaking. my friend might have a steadier hand, but still, in practical situations you probably will be on the move, and in that case the flip was less shaky. I can’t stress the shaking enough. I held that thing as stationary as possible, and it still picked up movement. so it was much worse when I was walking while filming. his flip was also immediately able to play video on windows media player or quicktime without installing any codec (on a pc or a mac). to play video from the vado I had to install a codec that is built in on the vado’s flash drive. I had to do this on for both a PC and a Mac. only took a second, but still, it seems like you will have to do this whenever you connect to a new computer. not cool. the vado captures video in AVI and the flip in MPEG4. I don’t plan to edit much, so both formats play fine on my computer. however, my playstation 3 (updated with latest firmware) won’t recognize the vado’s AVI format but plays MPEG4 with no problems. the one good thing about the vado is that it comes with an hdmi cable, which the flip does not. so I could connect the vado directly to my tv for HD output. the vado is smaller and weighs considerably less. the flip is about twice as thick as the vado. however, the lens on the vado protrudes outward where as the lens on the flip is actually built into the frame. so if you were to lay the vado down horizontally on the lens side, it would rest at an angle because of the protrusion of the lens. not a big deal. however, unlike the flip, the vado can’t rest vertically either. there’s a tab on the bottom to help pull out the usb cable, which prevents the vado from being able to sit vertically. big design flaw if you want to film but don’t have someone to hold the camera. my friend and I will do more comparisons on monday, but after playing around with both cameras on thursday, I think the flip produces better video, and for my use i am primarily concerned only with video quality. the vado definitely has it’s pluses (ie the wide angle lens and smaller size), but at this point I’m thinking about exchanging it for the flip, even if that means losing my $50 amazon credit.