Creative introduces budget camcorder

Creative has announced the availability of the Vado camcorder, a budget model that can record video in VGA quality. The hundred-dollar video camera can store two hours of video on its internal memory.

The Vado Camcorder features has a non-expandable internal memory of 2GB, which can store about two hours of video in 640×480 VGA resolution. The removable battery should last about as long after a charge via USB. Once the films have been shot, the Vado can be connected to the computer via a USB connection, whereby the camcorder is recognized as an external USB drive. The device weighs only 90 grams and is equipped with a display with a diagonal of two inches. In addition to the silver or pink camcorder, accessories such as an extra battery for fifteen dollars or a charger for thirty dollars can also be purchased.

The idea behind the Vado is simple: according to Mark Grover, marketing manager for Creative Europe, expensive camcorders are rarely used for fear of damage and are never ready to capture spontaneous events. The Vado must be to camcorders what a simple point & click camera is to an SLR camera: cheap, quickly ready to record and very simple to use. The Vado should also simplify video sharing: the videos recorded with the camcorder can be placed directly on YouTube thanks to the built-in software.