No annoying software forced on you if you don’t want it. Plug it into your USB and you’ll probably be able to view the pics and videos through your default player.
Fairly quick startup, just press the button and in a few seconds you’re ready to go.
Nice big screen on the back makes it easy to see what you’re filming.
What I don’t like:
“Touch” screen is not very good. UI is clunky due to slow response and zoom via the touch screen is difficult.
Awful mic placement. It’s better designed to take “vertical” movies. I try to take horizontal movies, similar to a monitor screen and I swear I cover the mic every single time. The mic is right on the edge you would hold it if you were holding a camera.
I have yet to find a portable device that takes good close up pics. This is no exception.
Stabilization is okay at best. Most of the time it doesn’t know what it should be stabilizing but it’s good with human faces.
For $40 or $45 it’s a pretty good deal as you don’t mind dealing with some annoyances with the touch screen menu system.
I have 3 of these… they take good hd video and just ok pictures.
The good…
Good 1080 video if you need to get some stock footage fast.
Light weight.
Flip out Usb so you don’t have to find a cable.
The bad.
No memory expansion. You have to pull every thing off right away.
The lens is extruded slightly from the front of the cammera. So if you set it down on a table you will scratch the lens.
The horrible.
Autofocus sucks. Do not expect to record any action shots.
After time the sensor will be come blurry from out door lighting. Makes eveything you record or take a picture of blurry.
I have lost a lot of footage randomly. From not downloading everything to a computer first… Do not know what happened, I just left videos on there to download later…
The tripod mount is a joke… plastic stripped out first time… I ended up having to use a helicoil in them so I could screw the pod on…
Also the cammera records in wide format so you have to use the cammera on its side (land scape) other wise you get a tall frame.
All in all. Not bad for the price, however I am not in for any… I am avoiding Sony because of this…
My luck I would get one that I had already returned for referbishment.
Sorry for the comment this was done on my phone… :s
I have a Kodak Zi8 and have had nothing but problems with the software that comes with it. I’ve tried alternate software, but most seem to just show black for the video, which is highly annoying.
If anyone has used this, how is the software that comes with it? Have you used any other 3rd party software successfully with it? Is it easy to burn a DVD for someone?
I love the Zi8, but if you can’t use the video when you’re done, it becomes pretty worthless.
OK, I can’t see anywhere that it talks about the zoom except for zooming in on pictures already taken. Anyone know what the zoom specs are on this? Maybe I just missed it?
It’s all digital zoom. So it’s not going to be pretty (digital zoom is equivalent to zooming in on a picture/video after it’s taken. If you need to zoom more than 2-3x, it’s going to look like crap.
I use this as my cheap camera for situations where I’m worried my good camera might get damaged. It takes very decent pictures (but there is no image stabilization, so you must be very steady). The video is great for most uses, but don’t expect to use this for action shots or low-light shooting. Works well for kids/pets doing cute things indoors. Works OK outdoors. The sound is not very good, and if it tries focusing, it will make weird clicking noises.
In all honesty, this is a glorified cell phone camera. If you have a camera with a 6+ megapixel camera, then this isn’t going to be much better. Although, I’d imagine this would be better for young ones to play with than a phone.
ooH, I can help with that. Groupon is a website in which they have multiple daily deals as well as travel deals and NOW deals that can be used in the short term. The idea here is that the merchant is willing to sell at a discounted price as long as there are a minimum amount of consumer purchases. When enough people place an order to hit the minimum mark, the deal becomes active and all purchasers get the discount. It’s really quite genius. Is that enough detail?
Today is actually July 10. Amazon bought the calendar and moved the whole thing ahead retroactively from 2004. So tomorrow will appear as July 12 and be Woot!'s birthday, but it will actually be July 11.
I think people put 7/11 on their calander so that they remember to stay up till midnight, thinking that if they put 7/12, by the time they realize it, it will be to late.
Same problem here! I’ve emailed WOOT in hopes they’ll resolve the issue in time. If not, maybe we’ll be dodging a bullet… the reviews of this camera are just so-so.
