Without seeing another camera's test footage (some on this page) to compare it to it will only be an opinion and guess on lens quality and function - many less expensive cameras - both still and video - have cheaper lenses, particularly if they have high zoom ratios (yours only has 4x zoom so suggests better quality glass)
The factor that may be coming into play here is focal length of the lens - again many smaller cameras have a wide range of focal lengths available - on still and video cameras this gives wide angle to full zoom. Usually at either extreme (fully wide or fully zoomed) the lens is at its most inefficient quality wise. I haven't seen such a pronounced step from one quality step to another but ....
This would suggest that your camera when zoomed out fully (widest angle, lowest focal length) has poor quality which then improves as you zoom in, getting closer to its most efficient focal length. The zooms on the page linked to above are a bit fast to really compare but does seem to get clearer when zoomed in.
The factor that may be coming into play here is focal length of the lens - again many smaller cameras have a wide range of focal lengths available - on still and video cameras this gives wide angle to full zoom. Usually at either extreme (fully wide or fully zoomed) the lens is at its most inefficient quality wise. I haven't seen such a pronounced step from one quality step to another but ....
This would suggest that your camera when zoomed out fully (widest angle, lowest focal length) has poor quality which then improves as you zoom in, getting closer to its most efficient focal length. The zooms on the page linked to above are a bit fast to really compare but does seem to get clearer when zoomed in.
