Aiptek PenCam Trio HD 8 GB Camcorder Value Pack

Review: If you are looking for an easy to use, very small camcorder and the only thing that counts is the small physical size, may be this PenCam for you. If you are looking for a high-quality camcorders, video and good photos clear need, then elsewhere. The device is small and light, and it has some nice features in theory, but it has much to recommend many shortcomings and problems that keep me from it all. . . with the possible exception of the acquisition it has for younger conditioned sitting thing that annoyed me right away was the excessive packaging this thing. There are plenty of thin, clear plastic and then hard thin transparent plastic, you simply have to cut through to the device from her prison – not environmentally friendly and above all not to get friendly with all people. Normally, I would would not make a big deal, but the PenCam was packed far too strong for me to let pass by, you unerwähnt.Nachdem frees the device from the packaging manang terrible, you will find that it is quite small. It is about the size of a (very) large (perhaps with the double-wide) highlighter. It is also very easy. This is because the device almost entirely of plastic and aluminum is a metal that can be made. The lens is fixed focus and diversity is similar in size and quality to be used on cheap lenses camera phones. The lens has no image stabilizer and no optical zoom. There is a small, but bright, white LED light that can only be used in low light to nearby objects or light as a weak flash for taking still images (as well as have some camera phones). There is also a small mirror that can be used for self-occupation and a hole for the microphone. The side with the lens is a large and rather useless plastic clip that is not meant to be removed, dominiert.Die controls consist of a thin four-way directional controller directly via three buttons for playback is, recording and deleting. The tactile feedback of the four-way controller is only as *. * Are described spongy Very often you will press time to activate the digital zoom or the light and the device does not respond because you are not pressing very hard enough. There is an LED ajacent on the left side of the four-way controller that turns solid blue when the power is on, flashes blue when the host and is red while charging. It is the tiny, literally stamp size, allegedly OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) screen, that the wrong aspect ratio for viewing HD video – is, in fact it is perfectly square, measuring 4.3 “x 4.3″. It simply shows the center of what the camera is recording or playing, you lose the right and left side. The screen is not very clear and the brightness of the screen is fixed. I have a hard time believing it as OLED’s nothing like the really * good * is AMOLED screen is on my Cowon S9.Entlang the right side of the power button and a hard-to-slide switch, the device is in the video -, camera or audio playback mode switch. Along the left side, there is a mini-HDMI port, a headphone jack and a mini-USB-2. 0 port. It made me laugh, but it is a standard tripod socket on the bottom. The unit comes with a mini-USB cable, a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable, composite AV cable, cheap earphones, screen hood / USB camera stand that stinks, I can just as toxic smell of burning, to describe an armband (an armband? why?) and a Schlüsselband.Let ‘s Get Down to Business. . . the primary task of a camcorder is recording video. Press the power button and the unit starts and is ready to shoot video in about eight seconds. Just the thing and press the red record button to record. The PenCam Trio records, what they 1280x720p HD video call to an MP4 file format. I say this because many times the video, it takes not even at 30 fps, no less the 60 frames per second, what the 720p HD video specification is recorded for calls. If the lighting is not serious light (ie outdoors on a bright, sunny day), the recording speed drops to only 15 frames per second making it very choppy, rough video. Even in bright surroundings, it takes the video is not very sharp, not very clean and very smooth. Since there is no form of image stabilization and the PenCam is so small and light, you have to hold the device still or to make very specific movements or slow it will shake a ton and jitter in the recorded video – it is almost impossible to . avoid And if a lot of movement, there are a lot of blocky compression artifacts in the recorded videos. Another problem is that there is no manual white balance setting and it makes a terrible job setting automatically, so that almost all have video taken inside any sort of color cast is too bad. For that matter, there is no manual control for everything. There is a “digital” zoom, is activated by narrowing the four-way controller either up or down or zoom while recording. Unfortunately, the zoom is jerky and it may not activate if you want thanks to the spongy four-way controller. The video light is switched on by pressing the controller to the right. I was surprised how bright the light was. At least the PenCam can be used as pseudo torch, if nothing else you werden.Stecken used the device in my PC, it appears as two removable storage devices. The video files are in H. 264 with an mp4 format. “Mov” extension, should be ala Quicktime (. Mp4 but who cares at this point). I could play it with VLC (see VideoLAN dot org) and in Windows Media Player with CoreAVC H. 264 codec. The video could not be described as sharp, unexposed well, was full of movement compression artifacts that had the wrong white balance 90% of the time, and trembling all over the place, as there was no image stabilization, and often dropped to 15 FPS when lighting is not ideal *. * In my first attempts I had about fifteen videos and one of them would not play in any program. . . not inspire confidence. At least in the insertion and removal from my PC was problemlos.Der built-in battery can not be replaced and the fees only if you plug the unit into your PC in an “off” state. When the device is turned on when you plug it into your PC, it will not recharge the battery, it is to mount the drives. It can not do both simultaneously. The battery life is not quite the 200 minutes of recording time. My initial estimate is that you get about an hour and a half to two hours of recording / standby time on a full Gebühr.Ich have not yet used the device for taking still pictures or audio playback. Even still, I can tell you that the audio playback is very basic with only a volume control and no support for many other things. I have not used the HDMI output, though I do not expect viel.Zu matters worse, my PenCam has a defect in the form of a bubble in the visible external lens that shows beautifully captured in the videos. If this were a quality device, this defect would probably never have passed Q / C. Overall, I recommend not just the PenCam, especially in the vicinity of its current price of a buck fifty. You can do much better at a similar price point, or if you spend just a little more money. . . Much better. For example, for a little more than that, you could get a Canon PowerShot SD780IS 12 years. 1 MP digital camera that features a compact, lightweight, easy to use, is more than excellent build quality, quality Canon lens with 3x optical zoom, optical image stabilization and a second 5 “LCD screen, absolutely killer, high-quality still images and excellent quality takes 720p HD video! So, if you are looking for a very small camcorder, video or low quality something you to give your children and have no concerns of destruction takes them looking for something more expensive, is the Aiptek PenCam Trio HD camcorder for Sie.Rating: 5.2