Kodak Zx1 – High Def Pocket Video Camera – Yellow
Product Description
Adventure can strike at any moment. Capture it in HD with the KODAK Zx1 Pocket Video Camera. Built to take on rain and snow bright light and low light this camera is ready for action. Now no matter where life leads you recording it all in stunning HD quality is as close as your front pocket.—-The KODAK Zx1 Pocket Video Camera is the perfect piece of kit to capture all of the adventures life can throw your way in glorious HD. With its robust built and great lens quality the zx1 will yield fantastic results in low light or bright light conditions and is tough enough to take on rain snow or any other conditions you can throw at it.—-Features:—– Zoom: 2X digital— Display: 2.0 in. LCD— Storage: 128 MB internal memory* SD/SDHC card expansion slot— Power: KODAK Lithium Digital Camera Battery CRV3— Dimensions: 50.1 × 107 × 20 mm (2.0 × 4.2 × 0.8 in.)— Weight: 90 g (3.2 oz) without batteries
- Kodak Pocket Video Camera ZX1 Yellow
• Take stunning 720p HD videos rain or shine with this weather-resistant recorder• Great results in bright light or low light, easily edit, create, upload to YouTube with built-in software• Record
A cracking piece of kit, I was a bit sceptical about other reviews that I had read concerning the amazing picture quality but having viewed the results on both my computer and plasma TV I am more than happy with the results.
The Zx1 can capture still pictures as well as VGA, HD & HD60 video with all major cable types (HDMI,AV & USB) supplied so connecting to your PC/TV/Laptop is quick and easy.
The quick start user guide is exactly what it says although a full guide can be downloaded from the Kodak website.
There is no flip out USB conector or protruding lens and the camera literally will fit comfortably in your pocket.
The only slight drawback is that there is no facility to monitor how much memory has been used, however an 8mb SDHC card should store a shed load of video and is also easily repleced should you need to do so.
The Ni-MH batteries supplied do take 12 hours to charge completely but I have an Energizer CH15MN charger that fully charges them in 15 minutes, the camera takes other brands of Ni-MH batteries as well as ordinary AA batteries.
If you are looking to buy a compact, robust, HD video/still camera then I would stongly recommed the Zx1 for incredible value for money and excellent quality in both the style and the picture quality.
Rating: 5 / 5
I went ‘viral’ checking every single you tube clip of ZX1 video samples and samples from it’s competitors – as you can guess I came to a contented conclusion and bought a ZX1.
The main competitor was the Creative Vado HD in my book; what put me off was the protruding lens and it’s internal battery (Kodak takes easy to find AAs) as well as the Vado being a bit dearer. The Kodak also comes with a multitude of leads – HDMI, USB, Stereo to USB.. fantastic.
The camera is reasonably intuitive but you must go online to view the detailed instructions – nothing in the box tells you how to enter the setup menu – set the clock or change from PAL to NTSC (hold two buttons down simultaneously). I am also a little disappointed that I can’t find anything that points me to an indicator of remaining memory, either internal or on SD card – perhaps someone else can answer that one.
Image quality is amazing for such a small device. In VGA mode I really couldn’t believe such a small lens produces such crisp and well reproduced colours. Whilst filming our little black dog Howie, the TV in the background is just stunningly sharp.
I have no hesitation in recommending the ZX1.
Rating: 5 / 5
This is a great piece of tech. The picture quality is stunning and really simple to use. It’s the size of a 3rd generation ipod so you can take it with you everywhere. Oh and it takes AA batteries (very handy when you are on the road).
Rating: 5 / 5
My wife enjoys taking quick snapshot pictures and videos. As we had just recently been blessed with our first Grandson, she wanted a small video camera to capture good footage, as he grows up. The pictures are excellent and she is very pleased with the camera. The extra memory card that we purchased, assists her in getting more excellent footage and then she can download it strait onto her laptop.
Rating: 5 / 5
Just some useful tips for everybody having any issues with the Kodak Zx1.
Go to http://www.kodak.com and enter the support area of the site, work your way through to the firmware section, download and follow the instructions.
The latest firmware resolves most sound issues if you have any. I also noticed an improvement in low light video recordings which I can only describe as finer grain rather than large grainy specks. It was enough anyway to convince me not to return the camera because of the poor low light video quality, but bear in mind CMOS camera do not work well in low light, you will discover that with optical zoom camera’s when you try to focus in low light regardless of the flash.
I compared the Zx1 and a standard 4 megapixel kodak camera in video mode, the video was comparable grainy in low light but the Zx1 image was far brighter.
Use a decent speed SD Card not the cheapest you can find, get a smaller faster SD Card over a large cheap slow one. The camera I believe can write at 11mb/s so you need an SD Card that will write at that speed or above. Check the write speed before purchasing an SD Card.
If you do experience choppy video on playback in Quicktime with a good speed SD Card check if the video is choppy on playback on the camera itself, if you have a HD TV or standard TV to hand try the HDMI or SD lead to check playback on the TV. I have found that quicktime on some computers just doesn’t seem to cope well with the HD video playback, you may experience issues on low end video cards. Try using the software that comes on the camera for video playback on your PC. See if the video is choppy in all modes such as VGA, HD, and HD60.
Rating: 4 / 5