HD camcorders: How to buy the best digital camcorder Buying a pocket camcorder
Pocket camcorders make it easy to record and share videos.
A growing market for simple-to-use pocket camcorders has revolutionised the way we take home movies. These models are very basic in their features, but they let you record videos and upload them to websites such as Facebook or YouTube with ease.
Models like the Flip Ultra HD, the Flip Mino HD, the Creative Vado HD, the Kodak Zi8 and the Sony Bloggie have been extremely popular thanks to their modest price tags and easy-to-use approach to taking and sharing videos.
See our expert Which? reviews of the best pocket camcorders.
Pocket camcorder features
Pocket camcorders tend to be the size and shape of a mobile phone, and they rarely have any but the most basic of features.
One-touch recording
You can typically find buttons for one-touch recording and playback on a pocket camcorder, and the means to skip videos and fast forward or rewind, but very little besides.
You won’t be able to adjust picture settings, though some pocket camcorders such as the Kodak Zi6 and Creative Vado HD allow you to select whether to record in high definition or standard definition.
Zooming
A major problem with most pocket camcorders is that they do not allow you to optically zoom. Instead, you are limited to the digital zoom, which may be as little as x2.
Digitally zooming has a detrimental effect on the video quality, and often your subject will appear out of focus.
One exception to this is the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10, a pocket camcorder which has a x5 optical zoom and a rotatable LCD screen. The screen can be useful if you are holding the camcorder above your head or filming yourself.
Uploading videos
When it comes to uploading videos onto the internet with ease, pocket camcorders leave many of their bulkier cousins in the shade.
Most pocket camcorders have built in USB connectors. These flip out to let you connect the camcorder directly to a computer.
Most of these come with plug and play software built in, which is installed to your computer the first time you connect the camcorder. Using the camcorder's software you can quickly and easily upload videos directly to websites such as Facebook and YouTube.
Video quality
You won’t be able to take videos with a pocket camcorder to match the sort of quality you can get with a larger camcorder, particularly full-size HD camcorders. But for YouTube quality videos, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Even pocket camcorders which can record in high definition will rarely give results to rival a larger camcorder’s. They can struggle particularly in dim light or artificial light, delivering poor contrasting and inaccurate colours.
They tend to have very basic autofocus functions, meaning that footage can look particularly poor in panning shots or trying to focus in low light.
Sound quality
Pocket camcorders have very small, basic internal microphones, and this can lead to rather poor or even muffled sound, and you won't be able to add an external mic to improve it.