I've owned this for about a week and am taking it on a trip to do a more complete analysis. I'll post back later. I currently have mixed feelings on this camcorder. It does take good video and is priced right. There are a few negatives to be aware of though which (I guess) are to be expected on such an inexpensive unit:1. The battery life (for me) is sucking. I will take it on my trip for a better test and if the batteries can't record more than 10 or 15 minutes each it'll go back. If I can get the 30 minutes that it is documented to have, I'll be happy. Note: I do realize that 30 minutes is probably "up time" for the unit whether it is recording or not. The batteries are only 1000Mah and have a loose feel inside the camera too. Will a more robust non-oem battery be coming out?
2. The buttons (to me) were ackwardly positioned causing a "shake" on the camera... and I guess I didn't realize how much my other camcorder's image stabilization must help me. Really needs 2 hands to hold without a shake and I can adjust but really, I think that the design, grip, and button placement could be a ton better.
3. The thing completely froze up on me once and I had to reboot it by removing the battery. I read online there is a firmware update but haven't pursued that yet. And I don't know what the firmware actually fixes.
4. The sound quality is not consistant. Many times I speak as I'm taking the video and mostly it sounded like a towel was over the microphone. The quality of those further away from the camcorder was only marginally better. Almost like the gain is turned up to far or something? I don't know and will test further.
5. No lense cover? Come on Aiptek. That's just cheap and plain dumb. And if I find the lens starts getting micro-scratches over the next week or two it'll go back for certain. It does have a descent carrying case included though. However, the safty loop that you wrap around your wrist so you don't drop the camera STICKS to the velcro on the carrying case whenever you take it out or put it away. This loop will end up being frayed or looking abused shortly because you have to "umph" to rip it off the velcro. This makes me wonder how much real world testing went on before this cam hit the street.
Besides these negatives the fact that I can throw it on my belt and carry it on my trip without feeling encumbured makes me want to use it more before making an ultimate decision as to keep or return. It will really come down to battery life (maybe it will improve as I use the batteries a few more times) and sound quality.
Oh, and it does work with BOTH the A-DATA and Patriot 8G SDHC card that I have.
So I'm giving it 3* for now. Doesn't mean I'll keep it or bring it back... just trying to give a fair review. I'll update my rating (if possible) and the review after a real road test shortly.
UPDATE: 3 WEEKS LATER, AFTER ROAD TEST
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Well I really wanted this little wonder to work. And it did for the first day of my trip. Then it just quit working. The only thing I can figure is that the roads I was on (Tijuana) were very bumpy. It was in the protective case 100% of the time when not in use but the plastic shell housing must be tell-tale of the low build quality on the inside. It just plain stopped working. The screen backlight would come on, but the camera would not initialize. Conclusion: THIS ITEM IS NOT VERY RUGGED AT ALL. It does not hold up to any real use and certainly not the tumbling that my old Canon digital camera (s410) always holds up to. It is a dead clunker now and it is going back to where I purchased... fortunately... with a good return policy. Moral of the story is buy this only from a site that has a descent return policy.
I'm not upset. It was great just throwing the broken cam in the bottom of my laptop bag where it took virtually no room at all. That is the point of a "go anywhere" sized camcorder. I was willing to trade some features for price... but not ruggedness. After all. It is the size itself that makes it something you want to bring anywhere. I'm going to hold off and wait for a similar product that is rugged. It is only a matter of time. It is too bad Apitek didn't built something with more stamina but someone will and I'll be there to buy it when it is out. After all, other than the zoom there are no moving parts in this thing to wear or break. So it must just be bad build quality.
Amazon won't let me change my star rating but if I could, I'd rate it down to 2 stars: more than one star because of price, features, and innovation but no more than that because... well... it has to KEEP working in the real world.
In short, unless you are willing to treat this thing with kid gloves (and I pretty much thought I did) I'd avoid it. The cheap price is tempting, and only spend as much as you can afford to lose because if you read other reviews, you'll also read about the cheap plastic on the outside among other quality issues. I'm here to tell you that what is cheap where you can see it, is evidently even cheaper where you can't.
Some problems: 1) There doesn't appear to be any image stabilization, so I've needed to hold on to it with both hands to keep it stable. 2) It deals poorly with movement. I'm not sure if this is the codec or the optics or what, but panning around can introduce some weird artifacts. 3) The zoom is quite noisy. If you're filming some quiet scenes, it's probably better not to zoom. 4) As with most camcorders, it needs light. It does have a built-in LED light, but it doesn't do much. 5) As with most camcorders, the microphone picks up the filmer's voice fine, but not the subject's very well. 6) The battery life is low. It comes with two batteries; you'll need them both. If you keep these limitations in mind, the size, cost, and HD resolution can make it worthwhile. If you can afford it, get the HV20 or another $1000 HD camcorder and many of the above issues will be reduced or eliminated.
A note for Mac users: I couldn't get my Mac to see the camera directly, but a card-reader plugged into the USB port could read the video/still files just fine.
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I picked up this camera not expecting anything much... but I was surprised!The video quality is very good and its pretty much a no brainer to use.
For mac users it works great since its a .mov file . All I had to do was pull the sd card out of the camera and into a reader hooked to the mac and copy the files over... they play with quicktime as is with no further processing. I used quicktime pro to edit what I wanted and all went well. But since these are h2.64 files you will need to use viddy up or divx to send your creations to youtube.
Over all the camera exceeded my expectations. these kind of camera's are really designed for quickie type videos that you want to view on your pc . They are convenient because the file is ready to go with no need for tape conversion then the dreaded compression which take forever... they are ready set go as soon as you copy the file. Also a 1gb sd card yields 30 mins and a 2gb is one hour. the camera comes with TWO batteries.
For the price you really cant go wrong.
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I am fairly happy with performance so far. The zoom motor is loud. My wish list would be for a microphone in. Low lighting isn't too bad for video, but not good for stills (there is a good flash strobe though).Docking station [called "Instant Theater" ] is for the most part a box padding [really is an alarm clock or whatever, I don't get it]. This "dock" doesn't really integrate well with this camera as it is designed for the lower end Aipek cams with mp3 function (this doesn't have that). It was hope that you could charge the battery or cam and it doesn't. You can only charge one battery at a time (there are 2 batteries in the box, last 30 minutes each) with either USB or DC adapter.
I ordered an 8GB SDHC card and it hasn't arrived yet so using a 512 MB card for now. The manual doesn't address the SDHC (at least the printed one), but I believe the web site at Aiptek does.
You save a lot of $$ over the Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2, but the Sanyo does offer HDMI and 10X zoom. Most HD video files are so large that it is hard to computer-edit. I've found these files small enough with the H.264 codec that it isn't too bad. One can use NERO to do this [DVD burner suite]. The low light video is simply fantastic at this price point. The cons are mainly sound [mono only], lack of fine controls [maybe a plus], fantastic sills at 5 megapixels, no videotape, and small pocket size. THIS ISN'T A CHEAPIE TOY, it is well-built.
Two batteries came with mine ~ but remember only 30 minutes with each battery for video. You can charge through USB or AC adapter.
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I had this guy for 3 days before it went kaput, in those three days I shot nearly 3 hours of video, in various lighting conditions. So I think I got a pretty good taste of its capabilities.First the Pros:
1. PRICE!! HD 720P for under $300...its a steal! Lose it or break it, you won't be crying (as hard) like you would over your $1200 HDR-CX7.
2. Size, its tiny, it literally does fit in your pocket, without you looking like you have a Camcorder shoved in your pocket. No excuse not to have it with you all the time.
3. Video is decent, especially outside in the sun
4. Shoots H.264 (Pro and a Con, as you will see later on)
5. Very fast power up and shooting time, no more waiting for a shot or between shots.
6. Looks sweet when playing back directly from the camera on my HD SRXD TV
Now the Cons:
1. Auto focus is awful, its loud and its no very accurate, I wish they at least gave you a manual focus ring to compensate
2. Optics are small, low light shooting is bad (what can you expect from such a little inexpensive camera though)
3. Its build quality leaves a little to be desired, you can see where they saved the money
4. 2 sets of cables to output HD Video, The camera has 2 miniplugs for AV output, one hidden under a tab (the HD) and one above it, not hidden. If you want to output to an SD TV the Yellow/Red/White work just fine, if you want to output to an HD (which I would assume is why you bought the camera in the first place) you need to open the tab, connect the composite cables Red/blue/green, then connect the analogue SD cables and steal the Red and white audio connection from them, leaving the yellow to dangle.
Don't get me started on the Audio Only "docking station"
5. Not many manual settings, or overrides, the controls are very very basic
6. The Audio recording is not so good, I think the problem is cheap mikes
Playback and editing (Be careful what you wish for)
I have an old computer, a P4 2.4 with 1 Gig ram, and Nvidia 7600 AGP video card. Playing the HD output files from this camcorder I was not able to get over 10 FPS, from the 30 FPS in the file (this is not a knock on the camera) The issue is the codec's complexity combined with my computer's old age made for a very frustrating playback (it almost made me buy a mac)
Editing was tough for my poor machine, to convert 6 minutes of HD into a FLV files of 640x320 took 3 hours! Again not the camcorder fault, but if you think you will be whipping off Discovery channel HD type documentaries with this baby make sure you have the rig to handle the task
The idea behind this camcorder is great, the price is even better they could have executed a little bit better, I was willing to forgive a lot of the short coming because of the price and the newness of it, and I probably would have kept it, had it not started adding the sound of film projector ticking to all my movies on the last day.
Remember a poor quality video, is better than no video.
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