Sunday
Apr222012
'1080p' Mini LCD Camera
Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 12:30PM This camera was very nearly great....but ended up merely being just OK.
When I bought my camera from an ebayer I paid £46, however I note that Dealextreme are now selling it for £35, so at that price it might still be worth a look, depending on your requirements.
I've included the link to Dealextreme below, they call it the F188, others call it the SC260B, and I'm sure you'll see it going by other names too.
Available from.....
If anyone wants a seller link adding to this post, please email me....but I won't include eBay auctions due to the speed with which they expire.
By the way, if you want to buy an 808#16 Camera, you can only get them through ebay. Here is a link to Eletoponline365 who make and sell these cameras through their ebay store.
Reader Comments (14)
Wow another close but no cigar camera, but another excellent review. You saved me money again! At first look I was ready to get one but like you, I will continue to wait until someone gets it right! It has to happen sometime!
Thanks again and keep up the great reviews!
John Ebell
So close and yet so far...
As per your review; decent looking package just a shame about the irritating gaps such as the missing 4th button (doh!) and poor sound, but by far the biggest let down is the video quality. I wonder if there is any correlation with the fact that it doesn't seam to lose any footage when transiting from once recorded segment to the next - could the embedded operating system have a higher priority over the image processing task?
As always I really enjoy your reviews and want to thank you for doing them. As you are always looking for cameras to review i thought I might save you the trouble of reviewing this one http://www.ebay.com/itm/150658074539?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
After watching this latest review I would guess these are virtually the same camera and software. Just in a different camera case. It has all the same menus, qualities and features and the same poor picture performance at night. I have been hoping you would actually end up doing a review of the camera in the link. Just for your opinion on it. But as those two are so similar it's really not worth it at all.
So thanks, and I look forward to your next video.
Glenn
The quest continues! I'm sure someone in China will eventually combine that 808#16 quality with a motion capture + car friendly package/software and the quest will be over :). Until then we will keep watching!
Hello, I have two questions for you. Did you open the camera case and tried to focus the lens? Does this camera have a loop mode (can it rewrite older captured videos with the newer ones)?
Thanks
Trinom
No I didn't and yes it does. That's the purpose behind being able to select the length of the video segments.
@Trinom....I typed the previous answer whilst sat in Ikea, so it was a bit brief...now I'm home, I should clarify that I don't think that the camera is out of focus, it's just not very good. The 120° wide angle lens might add some softness, but overall I'm not sure why the 720p footage is less than stellar. As far as the looping goes, it's pretty much standard for all cameras that are designed for use in cars, with an auto start/stop with the engine, to have looping video. Perhaps I should have re-iterated this in the video.
A great review as always.
I've been looking for a car camera for a while now and have found your reviews helpful. After researching russian forums have finally settled on a camera called F500LHD. Just ordered one a few days ago and I'm looking forward to delivery. What drew me to it were a resolution of 1920*1080P at 30fps, encoding in H.264 and apparently the quality of the video should be good overall. It goes under a few brands such like DOD and Mystery, which have a price premium and cost just over 100 pounds on Ebay. The one I have ordered is supposed be the same camera just without branding and cost me $84 (with a $10 coupon) delivered from China. Same discussion forum where I discovered this camera had a list of tried and tested sellers as it seems there are many fakes out there.
It would be interesting to see you do a review of it, as currently there are many test footage videos on youtube and a couple of unboxing videos in russian, but no proper reviews. I believe this camera deserves attention, especially at this price point.
Here is a link where I ordered mine from:
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/519218564--V6-8-T2L-KH-F500LHD-car-black-box-Night-Vision-Full-HD-1920x1080P-30fps-H-wholesalers.html
Also here is a link compiled by the members of the said forum with a list of good and bad sellers and other information regarding this family of cameras:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&key=0AvvapV-CkhvkdGxHdFBkdTRvdGZiRkhNd2NjanhIcEE&gid=9
It is all in russian and google translate refuses to work with the page as a whole, but it can be translated by copying the text into the translator.
Another interesting camera that I was considering is called R280. It also takes videos at 1920*1080P 30fps, however it is let down by a narrow field of view, especially at 1080P. Although it is a bit cheaper than F500LHD.
Very similar camera but...
Model: SC260B
http://dx.com/p/5-0mp-coms-car-dvr-camcorder-w-tf-mini-hdmi-champagne-2-0-tft-lcd-127279
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251047073709
Model: F188
http://dx.com/p/hd-1080p-mini-car-dvr-camera-camcorder-with-tf-hdmi-mini-usb-2-0-tft-lcd-120205
Hi. thank you for your reviews. What do you think about 808 #18 camera? Is it newer\better, than 808 #16?
@Al. From the reports I've read, the #18 just doesn't work properly and should be avoided. It's a step back anyway, just a #11 with AV out.
I recently bought this camera: http://www.ebay.com/itm/220990420165 (AT10)
and it seems to be the same as the one in your review. The menus and interface are almost exactly the same (no pictbridge in usb mode though), the video formats and framerates are the same (but files are .mov instead of .avi), and it has the same disappointing video quality at 720p. I've even taken it apart to refocus the lens, and it made no difference. I had to compare 480p and 720p in an image editor to convince myself it wasn't 480p upscaled--and found that 720p is just a little sharper. 1080p is definitely upscaled, as I can actually feel the camera getting sluggish (slow response to button presses)--that's probably why they limit the "1080p" framerate to 15fps.
Excellent review , however after looking at the pros and cons I decided that it would be just about right for me and I ordered one from Deal Extreme , When it arrived it became a prime case of "your mileage may vary" when buying Chinese goods :-
The camera and packing looked identical ( with the exception of no cyrillic writing on the outer packaging , only English ) but the screen view is quite different and the version number is completely different ( V1.00,2011,11,1118DEF)
Problems :-
1. No USB menu , Plugging the USB connector in flashes the welcome screen then about half a second of view through the lens and then back to sleep, buttons cause a beep but no other reaction , Unplugging gives "Goodbye" screen
2, Recording , 2 minute selection of recording length causes recordings for one minute and 17 seconds with gaps of around 15 seconds between segments
3. Freezes in the recording of half a second or so , (SD card is a Samsung class 10 that works faultlessly in other DVRs)
4. Languages :- Only English , Russion and two others ( Chinese & Korean ??)
5, Resolution VGA, D1 and HD !!
The instruction book calls the device a "G008 portable DVR" and the spec in the manual quotes HD as 1080/720p , so it looks as if the Dealextreme unit is nothing like the one you tested !! , All in all I'd say avoid this camera from Dealextreme !!!!
Date stamp is huge compare with the tiny one shown on your review !!
On the plus side , there seems to be no electrical interference pick up :-)
Hi, great review but I need more details on this Samsung 16gb micro sd card you're using for this camera. I need the know what's the max read and write speed of your card tested with this camera is.
I just bought this camera on ebay and I will also be buying a Samsung micro sd too. There is this Samsung Essential class 10 card max read 24 MBps and max write 13 MBps. I probably be getting a 32gb since is only $6 different from a 16gb.
Also would you know if this camera can handle a higher speed card like max read 48 MBps and max write 21 MBps because I found some Samsung Plus card on ebay that's not much price different comparing to the lower speed.
It'll be great if you can help me with this cause there's so much camera out there with sd card compatibility issue.