When you tackle as many different types of cameras and camcorders as I do–you get a new review here every weekday–sometimes you start to see a lot of cameras that look pretty similar to one another.  And not just in the same model line, either; granted, after awhile, most Nikon Coolpixes start to look pretty similar.  But some cameras don’t seem to distinguish themselves in any significant fashion.  That’s exactly what I thought about the Kodak Zi8 digital camcorder.

The Kodak Zi8 is a pocket camcorder that’ll shoot video in 1080p at thirty frames per second, accept up to thirty two gig in flash card memory, offers a five megapixel optical sensor and a two and a half inch viewfinder.

When I first laid hands on this one, I had a tough time finding the zoom function, and when I finally did, I wasn’t impressed as it was just a 1x optical zoom.  The controls were fairly simple to use and the resulting video was indeed 1080p clear, but frankly, there’s no way on earth this camera’s worth two hundred bucks, not when I can get still fairly small camcorders that can read small print from ten to twenty feet away.  No way.

So all things considered, if you need a small camcorder that can go anywhere but not do too much when it gets there, this is a good one for you.  But otherwise, no.