Zoom wants to get in on the mini camcorder market with their new Q3 Handy Video Recorder. They’ve long been highly regarded for their audio recorders, so it’s cool that they are coming out with something new. But, for some reason they are not riding the HD wave that other mini cameras are riding. The Q3’s max res is only 640 x 480 at 30 frames/sec. It does have a 2.4″ LCD display with a resolution of 320 x 240, an SD memory card slot and runs on 2 AA batteries. The price tag seems pretty high at $249.99. I think I’ll just stick with the Flip minoHD.
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I think the big deal is that Q3 has decent audio (full 44.1/48kHz PCM stereo WAV with no lossy compression; plus a decent quality stereo mic). All of the current inexpensive mini camcorders have pretty miserable, low-fidelity, mono audio. OTOH, great audio without HD is kind of putting lipstick on a pig.
Is this the same ZOOM that has been making guitar electronics for the last 20?