Kodak Zi8 HD Camera, Tech Review

Geek To Me Tech: Kodak's Zi8 HD Camera

I recently returned from a trip to Europe where I got to see the sights in Paris and London. Of course, when you go on such a trip, you want to record as much of the experience as you can. It just so happened that I had a review unit from Kodak of their new Zi8 handheld HD camera sitting in a box for some time, so I thought that I'd take it with me on my trip, put it through its paces and see if it was everything they say it's supposed to be.

Kodak Zi8 Camera - photo courtesy Kodak.com

When you first take it out of the box, you find that the unit is rather sleek and light, but the plastic casing makes it feel more like a 'Flip' video recorder than an iPhone. My guess is that Kodak intends this to be more their answer to the 'Flip' which just recently has been able to record in HD.

Read more after the jump!

According to the specs, the Zi8 is capable of recording HD video from 780p to 1080p, and takes HD stills at 5 MP. The unit doesn't have a lot of memory built in but has a slot for SD/SDHC cards up to 32 gigs. I used an 8 GB memory card that gave me around 1 1/2 hours of video, not counting the number of photos I took. (And I took more than 250 photos!) I took shots both indoors and outdoors, day and night, as well as in bright sunshine and in low light.

Here's a sample of some of the shots I took:

The Eiffel Tower - photo by Elliott Serrano

Here's a night shot:

Night shot in Paris

Daylight shots were clearer, IMO:

The Louvre's Inverted Pyramid - photo by Elliott Serrano

Another feature of the Zi8 is that it has a USB arm to hook directly to your computer and also has ArcSoft imaging software pre-installed, allowing you to edit photos and video to then upload them directly to your favorite video or social networking site like YouTube, Facebook or Vimeo. Honestly, the video options are kind of limited - even Windows MovieMaker gives you more options, although it can't edit the MPEG4 files this unit produces - but you can trim videos and add caption, credits, etc. as long as you don't want to get too clever:

Again, I was recording at 780p to conserve memory, but for all intents and purposes, it looks pretty good on YouTube. I was also pretty pleased with the sound from the built-in microphone:

Now before I gush too much over the camera, I must admit that I did encounter one problem, albeit it appeared to only occur overseas...battery life.

The camera comes with a AC/DC charger and can also be hooked into your computer's USB port which makes charging the battery fairly simple. But it looked as if the battery just wasn't getting a proper charge when I used a current converter in Europe. I'd leave the unit hooked up all night and even though the battery icon read as 'full' the following morning, it lasted barely half the day. This also led to issues with the camera freezing up while in video mode. (In these cases, I had to remove the battery to get the camera to reset.) In all fairness, this didn't seem to occur when charging the camera here in the United States.

All in all, the Zi8 is a nice little camera for the price (MSRP is $149.95). It's versatile, compact and good for taking pics and recording home-video. As long as you have a memory card of at least 8GB and access to current in the USA, the unit should serve you well.

Where are my London photos? Well, I uploaded even more videos and photos to my Facebook page, some featuring my visit to Stonehenge in England and Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Check it out and let me know what you think!

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