Zoom’s Q3HD is a little like a pro version of the Flip camcorder: it’s quick to use, records to solid-state memory and has a flip-out USB-plug to transfer footage. There, though, the similarities end.
From its looks, you can tell the Q3HD is a pro-tool: it’s ugly. But behind the face only a robot mother could love is a 1080p-shooting, hi-def audio-recording machine. And in fact, this camera is pretty much all about the sound. The two microphones up top, enclosed in a cage that makes the who camera look like a squared-off Dalek, record stereo sound at up to 24-bit/96 kHz into WAV files, and you can also pipe in the audio through a stereo microphone jack, and choose to forget the video altogether and just capture sound.
Recordings are captured to an SD-card, and you can edit in-camera, although this looks rather painful to do with the little 2.4-inch screen and non-touch-screen interface. You also get HDMI-out, a headphone jack and a mic gain switch (auto, low and high are its settings). Finally, there are some color modes, including “concert lighting”, making this probably the perfect bootlegging device. It even runs on a pair of AA batteries.
The price reflects the spec sheet: $300, available in the Fall.
Zoom Q3HD product page [Zoom.jp. Thanks, Mark!]
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