Customer Rating: 
Summary: Depending on your expectations and needs, it might be a good choice.
Comment: The Kodak Zi6 HD Pocket Video Camera follows in the footsteps of the Flip series of small, pocketable video cameras. In many cases the Zi6 ups the ante in this area however. With a significantly larger LCD screen as compared to the Flip series, your eyes will be much happier. The resolution of the screen is great as is the brightness, except when viewed outdoors in bright sunlight. In bright outside conditions, the LCD becomes more difficult to see, but this is a common problem with most LCD displays.
The camera gives you three ways to record video and also captures single still images:
1. As HD movies at 720p and 60fps
2. As HD movies at 720p and 30fps
3. As VGA movies at 640x480 resolution
4. Still images at 3MP interpolated
What does that mean? Well it means that you get pretty good quality HD video in good lighting at either 30 or 60fps. And VGA movies are pretty good quality as well. But in lower lighting conditions, the quality suffers greatly.
The still image quality is barely acceptable and certainly not up to par with a dedicated point and shoot camera. The quality is comparable to what many cell phone cameras would provide.
The Zi6 has a SD card expansion slot which is a huge advantage over the Flip series of cameras. You can put in up to a 32 GB card which will hold several hours of video.
The major downside of this video camera is its lack of image stabilization and the awkward placement of the button that controls recording. It takes much practice and concentration not to get visible "jumps" when turning off the recording. If you are recording a long segment of video, it can become quite tedious to hold the camera still for any great length of time in spite of it's lightness. The lack of image stabilization really becomes apparent when you are panning while recording, unless you are using a tripod. Using a tripod for such a tiny camera is awkward and diminishes the usefulness of such a small video recorder.
The camera itself has a nice "feel" to it. I do not get the impression of cheapness or flimsiness. The LCD display is a joy to look at indoors and in shaded outdoor situations.
Although the camera has a built-in speaker, there is no way to mute the volume of the starup and shutdown chime. It is always on. The built-in microphone is quite good and because the unit is solid state, there is no motor noise or any other such mechanical noise picked up while recording.
Battery life is good. On fully charged NIMH batteries, I recorded a continuous segment of 15 minutes and then several other segments of varying lengths and the battery indicator was still showing two bars. I would estimate that fully charged batteries could give you an hour of recording... less in cold weather.
As a small video camera that can easily be put in a pocket, this provides a great way to capture spur of the moment snippets of video. The included software is pretty weak, but it is easy to import the video into other image editing programs. And Mac users will happy to know that the video is formatted as .mov H.264 so you won't have to deal with wmv files.
One other feature worth mentioning is that there is a Macro setting that let's you get remarkably close macro photographs and videos. As close as 2 inches basically. While it isn't something that most people will use very often, if at all, it is a great feature for the times that you do need macro capability.
Pros:
-Great tactile feel
-Large sharp and bright LCD screen
-Quick startup time
-Decent battery life
-SD slot lets you use large capacity cards for hours of recording capability
-Amazing macro capability
Cons:
-Lack of image stabilization makes shooting steady video difficult
-Still image capture is not very good
-Very poor low-light performance
-No volume or mute control for the startup and shutdown chime
I think Kodak has brought to market a great little video camera that will certainly put some pressure on Flip. As it is right now, it's a wonderful little video camera that easily fits in a pocket and gives you the ability to virtually instantly grab video whenever you want.
Make no mistake, this is not going to suffice if you are looking for a really small yet great quality video camera for movie making. It will suffice for spontaneous video capture of life's unexpected events. It's easy to operate, attractive and fun to use.
For its intended use, I give it 4 stars. If it had image stabilization, it would have earned 5 stars.
Customer Rating: Summary: Overall, I like it a lot...one inconvenience, though
Comment: I just got this camera, and really do like it. Opinions seem to vary on this, but I actually do like the fact that you can just drop in two easily-available AA batteries to power it. I hate and detest gadgets that use some sort of rare, esoteric battery type that isn't readily available everywhere. You can use rechargeable AA batteries if you wish, and it actually comes with a couple of them (pre-charged) and a recharger. For me, though, the whole idea of a tiny little camera is to have it with you for instant use when an unforeseen opportunity presents itself. With rechargeables, you have to plan ahead for when it'll be used by constantly having a pair of charged batteries on hand....and it takes many hours to charge them.
The one thing I dislike about this camera so far is that USB plug that pops out. Maybe it's perfect for a laptop computer, but on desktop computers you wind up having to plug it in the USB slot somewhere on the computer's case or on the monitor, and it's just being held suspended in the air by that little plug, and gravity is pulling the camera down and trying to bend that plug and its socket, which doesn't seem like a very good idea as it puts strain on those delicate parts. I find I either have to hold the camera in place, or use a piece of tape or something to hold it there. Ridiculous. I tried getting around this problem with a USB extension cord, but for some reason the camera didn't seem to like this, and it remained unrecognized by the computer. Same thing happened when I plugged it into a USB hub. When I relented, and plugged the camera directly into the socket again, it again recognized it. Why? Who knows? The pop-out plug seemed to me like a neat idea....until I actually tried it out and encountered the practical problems with it.
By the way, the built-in memory is almost useless. You get about 30 seconds of video with it, and no more. For the camera to be of any practical use, you HAVE to get a memory card. I got an 8 gigabyte card, and it's extremely easy to install. You just plug it in, and there's an illustration in the instruction booklet to show where, and how the card should be oriented when inserting it.
