The first one I bought busted because I was a bit rough with putting in the battery. They (Swann) replaced it, no questions asked but I did have to pay postage there.
Ok, now…
The image/video quality: Not bad. I used it for snowboarding and for snorkeling and the video wasn’t bad. It wasn’t quite as nice as I would’ve hoped (though still not bad) but in its defense I used it inside of its case. In low light though I think the picture quality degrades quite a bit. It’s also wide angled so you see more but the picture will be a bit distorted (as are all action cams).
Accessories: The LCD screen is a very nice addition, but the issue is you can’t use it while in the casing. With the LCD screen on it’s too big to fit in the casing. But it’s nice that right afterwards, you can pop the case open, put in the LCD screen and review your videos/pictures.
The mounts… aren’t that good. They don’t come off (which is how all those mounts are though), but the GoPro (maybe only the new ones but the current ones) mounts are just a bottom piece that stays on your equipment and the rest of the mount slides into the part that’s permanently stuck in. The Swann ones would require you to have the entire thing permanently stuck to your item.
I’m currently using a GoPro3 now because the Swann broke. It’s not the fault of the Swann at all though. I broke it by being a dumb ass. I bought a strap (not intended for the Swann, but I made it work) and the strap got caught in the casing when I closed the casing and I didn’t notice. Jumped into the water and then noticed the entire casing was full of water. Sigh. If anyone needs Swann parts, let me know. Still have a working casing, a mount or two and LCD screen.
The GoPro3 (Silver model) seems to have better picture quality (not astoundingly, just a bit better) and as I mentioned before has better mounts. It also has WiFi built in and an associated app so you can see what the camera sees from your phone (instead of having to use the LCD screen), but you can’t see what’s on your camera through the app.
It’s also 3x more expensive than the Swann (but it’s been on sale for $230 often).
Hope that helps. If you just want a camera you can jump into a body of water with, this is a good buy. If you want the best picture quality (especially in lower light situations), this is probably not the best choice (but of course the best choice would probably be the GoPro3 Black, which is 500 bucks). If you want to mount this on things and you don’t have items you don’t care about having non-low profile mounts permanently stuck to, this is probably not for you.
Thanks for your review. I’ve seen this camera on sale here on WOOT a few times so far (always $99) so I’m sure it will come up again. This seems like the next best (inexpensive) thing to a GoPro. I didn’t get it this time but when the SWANN camera comes up again I’m going to have a seroius look at it.
this makes no sense to me… I have this SwannHD that I bought over a year ago from woot… it has the stick on mounts that you slide and snap the camera part on… if you look at the last pic that woot has up you can see the rectangular sticky parts that go on your helmet or dash or whatever, and then there’s the part that slides into it which is screwed onto the camera/case…
so you only take half of the mount with you, the part that is screwed to the camera and slips into the mount that’s stuck to your mounting surface…
also, the sound quality sucks over 5-10 mph… all you hear is wind… and in the case you don’t really hear anything at all…
low-light doesn’t pick up well, but that’s expected in a cheap camera…
otherwise a decent camera for the price…
I keep the battery charged/charging all the time… it doesn’t seem to like to sit… I never know when I might head out the door so I just leave it plugged in… they don’t advise you to do that though… I get about 2.5 hours out of it…
I have a 16gb card in mine and it’s set to overwrite mode…
Still have a working casing, a mount or two and LCD screen.