Sunday, July 18, 2010

Review of Kodak Zi6 Pocket HD Camcorder

On a recent trip to Utah I lost an expensive Sony HDD camcorder.  I was really bummed out it, to say the least, but then my wife decided to surprise me with an early Christmas present to replace it.

She got me the Kodak Zi6, a pocket HD camcorder that competes with the Flip. The Flip Ultra and Flip Mino have some things that the Zi6 doesn't, the main one being a rechargeable lithium ion battery and lots of onboard memory, but the Zi6 gives you an SD card slot so you can expand the memory up to 32gb if you like. And from what I gather from a number of reviews, it seems the Zi6 has a bit of an advantage when it comes to picture clarity.

The one thing that bothers me though, is that it runs on AA batteries. And not just any AA batteries, either. From what I've experienced so far, you need to use the Kodak-branded NiMH rechargeable AA batteries that it ships with if you want the power meter to work properly. I tried using some standard Alkaline batteries and the power meter drained in about 10 minutes. What's funny is that after a few minutes I turned it back on and it was at full again, but only for it to drain yet again after another couple minutes. Using the Kodak batteries, however, I experience none of those problems.

I'm certainly no technology pundit, but I'm excited to have a new camcorder.

And no camcorder review would be complete without a little test footage.  Check out the videos below if you would like to see me sing a long with Celia Cruz and Juanes...






If you like what you see, and want to get a Kodak Zi6 for yourself, feel free to pick one up here:

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