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The video offering on the ChaCha is, like the stills camera, adequate but not ground-breaking. It shoots at a maximum resolution of 720x480 and looks good on the screen. Unfortunately, it only records in the slightly old and outdated .3gp format.
One thing we liked is the fact that when in the video recorder, you're able to fiddle around in the options and adjust your levels just like you can in the normal camera app. You're also able to shoot videos with a number of effects to jazz them up, and we think this is something that the target market will lap up.
Our only criticism is that you have to dig through the menus to do this and for most users, that'll be a chore. Having a shortcut on screen would have made this a lot more intuitive but it's hardly a big deal.
You can choose whether you'd like to save the video with audio (though why you wouldn't is beyond us) and the sound does record well. We had no issues with it being out of sync in any way, and audio was clear.
You have the option of shooting with the LED flash on and can also record from the front-facing video camera, which is ideal if you'd like to record your musings to Facebook (again, watch out for the pulsing blue 'F' button).
The ChaCha did struggle to keep up with the light as we moved from darkness to light and, it sometimes found it hard to work out if we were indoors or outdoors at time, making bizarre jumps from lightness to darkness. The handset also found it hard to move around (which is odd, since that's what video is all about) and pictures looked blurry unless filming a static subject.
