My Q3HD started going on the fritz. It was maxing out new alkaline batteries in less than 45 minutes. I wasn't able to record a whole performance.

It was out of warranty. I contacted Zoom, and they told me that my model was discontinued, but if I returned my camera, they would ship me a new Q2HD for $79 plus shipping. I thought great, until I saw that the Q2HD doesn't have audio inputs.

I asked Zoom if I could get the Q4HD if I paid extra, and they said yes, for $169 plus shipping.

I tried the Zoom Q4HD at one gig the other night, and I'm super happy with it. The sound with the mics was superlative. The lens is at a wider angle than the Q3HD. You can put the camera pretty close to your keyboard and get an ample view. With the Q3HD, I was having to put the tripod practically in the audience so that I could get a full view of myself.

The battery is a cell phone type lithium battery that performs better than AA alkaline batteries.

I came up with a couple of clips that will please my potential clients, but probably won't impress you guys much as I wanted to highlight my joi de vivre more than whatever virtuosity I might possess. But I'll post something soon.

Why not use an AC cord instead of batteries?

Looking forward to your new video performances soon good luck Larry.

Larry, good luck with the new camera, and believe me, I only wish I had your playing skills - you really are a master arranger keyboard player.

Gary

I own a Q3HD,too. For home recordings, I just started using an electricity supply, as otherwise you are always nervous whether the batteries are going to hold or not.
But the lithium battery of the new model - is it fixed or can you take it out and have two of them in order to change them?

I don't want to use an AC cord during performances because seniors and staff can trip over the cord and fall.
I will post a video.

The battery on the Q4HD is removable, but it looks like it's proprietary to Zoom. It might be expensive to replace.

One great advantage over the Q3HD is that you have to reset the date and time every time you change batteries. With the Q4HD, I just removed the battery, and the date and time was still correct.

I found this on the internet:

Turns out that the Zoom Q4 uses a Samsung SLB-10 (SLB-10a) style lithium battery. So if you run an internet search for that battery, you will find spare batteries in the $10 to $20 range. I just purchased one and I was also able to purchase an external battery charger (AC or 12v CIG) -- which is more convenient than having to use the camera as a charger!

One thing I just realized is that there is no optical zoom AND no digital zoom! There's just one ON/OFF button on the LCD screen to zoom in and zoom out at a fixed distance. No adjustability.

This lack of feature is very startling for a $300 camera. The discontinued Q3HD had digital zoom. The cheaper Q2HD has 4x digital zoom.

I'm going to be using this thing almost exclusively on a tripod, so it's not a big deal for me, but I expect this will disappoint other potential buyers.