Once the novelty of having a full windows pc in a stick wears off, you’re left with an overall slow but serviceable pc. It’s more or less what I’d expect from hardware at this price point so I can’t exactly fault it. The thing does run Netflix and Youtube at 1080p fine after all, and that’s primarily what I bought it for. In my case I didn’t want to have my giant gaming PC with its noisy fans running whenever I just wanted to stream some TV so I decided to buy something cheap to smarten up my dumb projector.
This is more of an informal, user experience based review rather than a technical review, as this is the first quadcopter I’ve ever used. The good news is that for the most part it flies fairly well, but there is a large learning curve for someone who has never flown before. Despite crashing the quadcopter hard a few times it still flies fine, but now the camera mount is broken beyond repair (and it is difficult to find replacement parts). Overall this has been a fun experiment, and I look forward to flying more of these in the future.
This is yet another fake 4K camera based on the Novatek NT96660 processor and a Sony sensor. It does 1440p @ 30 FPS or a weird almost unusable 2880×2160 @ 24 FPS. Despite my critical comments in the video this cam does have some good things about it: I noted that this camera has a wider dynamic range than a few other Sony/NT96660 cams I’ve tested before meaning that bright and dark areas retain details better instead of getting too dark or too bright, but in many cases the video is almost hazy/greyish and colourless especially in direct light. Also the gyro and 60fps modes don’t exactly work. I’m going to play around with some firmware and see if I can find something better and/or hack together something workable then get back to you with a full review.
The Viofo A119S is a low profile dash camera based on the A119 form factor however there are two main differences: the camera uses an updated lens with a narrorwer field of view, and it contains a Sony imaging sensor that is capable of a max resolution of 1080p at 60 FPS.
This is listed as an 8.5W solar panel online, but the specs say 10.6W. Little solar panels like this can be alright in direct sunlight but I’d advise, for most cases, to buy something a bit bigger otherwise you’ll just get 1A (standard speed charge) max. That’s not taking into account light fluctuations and whatnot that happen with the sun. This one also made an audible whine at lower current outputs. But otherwise it seems to work fine in direct sun. This power bank does not store power, so a separate USB battery bank would be required if you want to keep energy overnight.
The Olala 10,500 battery bank is a 2 port portable charger that supports Quick Charge 3.0 output. I’ve owned many battery banks over the years and this stands out because of one killer feature: quick charge. It can make a significant difference in charging speed if your phone supports it.
Overall, in my opinion, it is worth the extra money for the A119 until Viofo releases a firmware update to improve the exposure rendering of the A118C2 and even then the performance can only be improved so much. The video on the A119 is sharper and it has 1080p60, as well as 1440p.
Overall, my recommendation is to spend a bit extra and get the A119 over this camera. The video quality is higher in daylight, because the A119 does a better job with colour, shadows and highlights, and the night video is close enough to call it a draw. The A118C2 is an OK camera, but there is better value available for just a little bit more money.
This is a review of the Akaso EK7000, a low end action cam that uses deceptive marketing techniques in order to generate positive ratings. Well, put it this way: the camera does take video at 1080p, and it’s actually OK. But this camera does not take nice still images and calling it 4K capable is an absolute joke.
This USB power bank resembles a normal battery bank, but it has a “unique” feature that makes it potentially deadly. The hottest I measured this battery at was about 80°C / 175°F – and lithium ion batteries do not like heat.