Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera Review

Mike Agerbo and AJ Vickery take a look at some of the cool features of the Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Camcorder

AJ Vickery: Today, we’re going to have to look at another small format video camera and you might see more of more of these coming out now. Instead of having sort of the thousand dollar camcorder that’s typically you know bit bigger and has tons of functions on it, there’s a series of these smaller video cameras that are coming out and that’s what they are. They’re 100% video cameras. They’re not really meant for taking photos but just video. Today, we’re going to look at one called Kodak and it’s called the Zed I8. Mike Agerbo: I called them pocket camcorders because they literally fit right in your pocket and I think that’s one of the advantages of this foreign factor. You know with the bigger ones, that’s not something you’re just going to grab as you’re running out the door and you can stuff it in your pocket. This one here as you can see can go right in there and you’ll take this thing pretty well everywhere which is kind of a nice feature. So you’re going to get a lot more video because you’ll actually want to use the thing. AJ Vickery: Oh, the one thing I did like about the Kodak compared to some of the other versions that I’ve seen is there’s a lot of upgradeability. First of all we’ve got the SD card for recording the memories. I just popped that open. Mike Agerbo: That’s one thing to keep in mind when you’re comparing this with other ones like the flip one for example. AJ Vickery: Yeah. Mike agerbo: The flip ones have memory built right into it so they’re roughly kind of the same price range. Where as this one, you’ll still have to buy an extra SD memory card so you can actually take somevideo. AJ Vickery: So it’s an added cost but you can have a choice to buy like a higher memory card than typically what it might comes down there with the flip. I like this because it’s actually rubber. Mike Agerbo: Yeah. AJ Vickery: And that’s the one problem I had with some of the other ones is when they’re firm and they have to stick into the side of your computer and it it’s you know raised or something like that, this one is rubber so it’s more durable. Mike Agerbo: And you’ve got a selection of the different types of qualities you can record in here. You can see I can record right up to 10 ADP which is kind of the highest resolution that a lot of these TVs out in the market have now. And this particular one will actually do a stilt photos as well if I make a pixel HD photos if you wanted to take pictures with this here. I mean it’s not going to be as good as like a regular digital stilt camera but you know for something that’s kind of an all-in-one here it’s not too bad. AJ Vickery: It’s kind of funny that they’ve added taking pictures now to this because you can see why but again, it just doesn’t have the same lenses that you get in a camera. So it’s primarily what you’re looking for. But again, the whole point with this camera is these make them really simple to use. So when we connect this to the computer we’re going to have one-touch software that allows us to upload it to video sharing size like YouTube or even Facebook. And it even got a video converter as well which is kind of a nice feature. If I wanted to convert this video into other format, so if I have a Sony Playstation 3 for example I want to watch the video there, I can convert it over. Or it has an iPod conversion as well for iPods, Apple TV and even the iPhone. I would say probably now of the most important things with any of these cameras today though is really getting them of with the computer. I mean definitely, Facebook and YouTube is important but the fact that you can look at them in the comfort of your own home. Mike Agerbo: And so this has got the mini-HDMI and so let’s go and plug that in and then within seconds it brings it right up here, then we can start playing that and away we go. And this actually has pretty good quality. AJ Vickery: Oh, it’s fantastic. Mike Agerbo: And as far as the motion obviously if we weren’t jerking this thing around so much it’ll be a little more steady, so it does have image stabilization to a point but again you want to hold the camera a little more steady so we had a chance to try it in some low lights situations as well. Pretty grainy, but I think pretty well most camcorders out in the market unless you’re starting to spend like a thousand dollars just can handle low light that well. AJ Vickery: Yeah, lights always been the problem even in the point and should digital cameras but again, pretty fun, easy to pack around with this and like I said you can out it in your pocket and have a video ready for all those important events. And one other thing just to remind you it is extra memory that you have to put into it, that internal that’s loaded on. It won’t be enough to get pretty much to anything. So it’s the Kodak, it’s the Z I8, little pocket point shoot camera.