Creative is finally ready to officially unveil the hi-def version of the Vado.

We first caught a glimpse of the camera back in late November, when a Singapore publication leaked a shot of the device long with a list price of roughly $199 US. Not to say that anyone was especially surprised by the information. After all, the Vado's chief competitor, the Flip Mino was given HD capability recently, following in the footsteps of Kodak's Zi6, which received our Editor's Choice in the category.

Personally, I preferred the Vado to the original Mino, with its sleeker for factor, larger screen, flexible USB arm, and removable battery, so I'm pretty excited to get my hand on one of the units--something Creative promised us would be happening very soon.

The Vado HD features 8GB of built-in memory (double that of the Vado--which should get you about 2 hours in HD mode or 8 hours in VGA), full 1080i HD playback on an HDTV, and built-in editing software. The unit also ships with a silicon skin, USB extension cable, and an HDMI cable--the latter of which is a $40 value, according to the company.

The Vado HD has a list price of $229--the same as the Mino HD, though pre-ordering it from Creative will knock down the price to $199.99.