Update 20091003 – Found Vado Central for MAC on the Creative website. Took me about 7 minutes to import a 2 minute clip into iMovie but I did not notice any loss in quality of the audio or video. Overall happy with the quality of the video and features of this hand held camcorder. May need to pay up for iMovie09 as it would appear to have a stabilization process that you can perform on your video which would add to the quality of the video this camcorder takes.

Cons:

I wish it had an optical zoom, and not just 3x digital zoom. For those who don’t understand the difference. Optical zoom is a ‘true’ zoom. Digital zoom basically just crops the image to make it look larger, thus making the resolution worse in the process. It’s likely that future models will have an optical zoom, but right now it’s just not available.

The Vado also uses a rechargeable battery instead of regular AA batteries. At the moment, I’m not too sure how I feel about that. Basically, in order to charge the camcorder, you have to hook it up to your computer. My worry is that if you’re on vacation or something and the battery gets low, instead of just reaching in your pocket and pulling out some spare AA batteries, you’re going to have to go find a computer.

Pros:

Considering the size, this is a really excellent camcorder. Yes, the quality isn’t going to be the same as a larger, more expensive camcorder, but the problem with those larger camcorders is that you can’t walk around with it in your pocket. In today’s youtube society, you never know when something spectacular is going to happen right in front of you, and it would be great to be able to capture it. More practically, let’s say you got into a car accident, you could document the damage immediately.

I have both a Mac and a PC and had no problems using this camcorder on either. It’s just ‘plug and play’, attach it to your USB and you’re ready to go. The Vado doesn’t come with any installation CDs, because you don’t need it. There’s also been some people wondering about the quality of the Creative brand. I own several Creative products, and have had no problems. Creative is a brand that I trust and one that I’ve trusted for years. I’m certainly no expert, but in case you’re wondering why you should care about my opinion, I will say that I do have a BA in Imaging Digital Arts.

Ease of Use: There are only a couple of buttons on the Vado. If you can hit a power button and then hit the red record button, then you can work this camcorder. Believe me when I tell you that most digital cameras are way more complicated than this Vado. The use of it is also very intuitive, you’ll likely not need to even bother looking at the simple instructions that come with it.

I did take off one star for the cons I listed above, but over all, I highly recommend this camcorder.