Everything under the sun is going "high def" right now: monitors, televisions, cameras, even traffic of all things. So it was only a matter of time before pocket camcorders followed suit.
Creative has upped the resolution of its pocket video camera, the Vado, from 640 x 480 to a more HDTV-friendly 1280 x 720.
The HD version is just as small, neat and pocketable as the original, but there are several subtle differences. There's a new "wide angle" glass lens, which sticks out a few millimetres from the previously flat body.
To accommodate those HD files, it has 8GB of storage over the original's 4GB. There's an HDMI video output socket as well as composite, and the camera even comes with an HDMI cable so you can display clips directly on your HDTV.
This is just as well, for although there's software onboard for viewing, editing and uploading clips to YouTube (and other services), the editing part is limited. You can put only three video clips together without paying for an upgrade. Considering the high asking price, that's more than a little cheeky.
It's a shame, because the software is more elegant than other in-camera tools we've seen - it's one of the reasons we recommended the original Vado. At least the AVI files produced by the Vado HD can be edited in most standard video-editing packages.
Quality, too, is disappointing. Despite the new lens, footage didn't look as sharp as we expected; colours were well-balanced but over-saturated, and it had the same problem with highlights bleaching out as its predecessor.
But perhaps worse than all of this is the price. The reasons for pocket video cameras' existence are low cost and ease of use. By setting the price at $352 Creative has ensured that the Vado HD misses one of these core requirements by a mile; and it has neither the quality nor features to justify it.