Moving away from the Jumbo 828 for a minute....I've got to reiterate how much the HD808 #16 camera has improved since my review. I managed to kill off my original #16 camera during testing, so I ordered a new one from eletoponline365 on Ebay and when it arrived I installed the latest released firmware. Everything that I mentioned as being less-than-perfect during my original review of the #16 has been improved/addressed and fixed. If you were to ask me what the best micro HD camera is today I'd have no hesitation in still recommending the 808#16. I really hope that the manufacturers of the #16 manage to find a way to put it into a proper action camera case soon. 

Car camera? 

None - I've only tested two purpose built car cameras, one cheap generic model that was supposed to be 720p but was just upscaled 640x480 and the other one, the 1080p V1000GS, worked well for me during testing, but lots of people have since reported big problems with it.

Mini Camera?

The HD 808#16. I may have had a couple of issues with it during my test, but that was  pre-production model. Since then firmware updates have improved and resolved any teething troubles. Second place is the Jumbo 808 - but there is a new 1080p Jumbo model supposed to be on it's way to me and if that does proper 1080p,  has a wider angle lens and a longer battery than the #16, it could claim the number 1 position....stay tuned.

Action Camera?

TIE - The RD32II & The Crocolis Extreme Cam Both produced very good results for me, but both have issues. The Crocolis records totally unusable sound and the RD32II creates video that I can't import into iMovie without re-encoding. Neither are perfect, and your choice depends on what you need to use them for. I haven't tried the GoPro, Stealth or Contour cameras, so I cannot do a comparison with these. If you have the money, you may well be better off with one of these more expensive options.

Pens, watches, sunglasses and other spy cameras?

No idea. I'm not really into spy cameras, it's been a long time since I've tested one and so I can't comment on which is the best.

However things don't stand still for long and towards the end of 2011 Lenovo released a revised model called (appropriately enough) the N5902. So in this video I'll highlight the differences between the old N5901 and the new N5902 and find out if the new model is a worthwhile upgrade.

IMPORTANT UPDATE 01/02/12 - The USB dongle does infact work on a Mac or a PS3. I stupidly trusted the manufacturer's info on the box and believed that this was a Windows only device.....but surprisingly when I plugged it into the PS3, it worked straight away and even the PS key is mapped to the Windows key. The Mac works equally well. So I apologise for the incorrect info in the video, when the Rii keyboard arrives, I'll be sure to include more information about this undocumented feature in that video, together with a demonstration.  

1) No software or drivers must be required on his PC..because it runs Ubuntu and attempting to troubleshoot Linux is my idea of hell. So an Ethernet connection is required. 

2) It should 'just work' - requiring no additional connection steps by the user. 

3) Avoid using his old rusty crackling phone lines. 

Well, luckily for me, Three Mobile stores in the UK have recently started selling the ZTE MF10 home 3G Wifi and Ethernet router. This was the piece of the puzzle that enables me to slot all the other pieces into place. So in theory I can now use 3G Broadband in the home, in the same way that a normal wired ADSL connection was used previously.

So the question is, does is work and is it as simple to set up as just plugging all the pieces together and turning it on? Watch my short demonstration video to find out. 

....If you've seen the clip above, you'll see that it does work and it works well. Of course all this relies upon having a good strong 3G signal. Assuming that you do, and your usage falls within the limits there are some other reasons why you might want to go down this route rather than the traditional wired alternative. 

Firstly there is no need for a monthly telephone line rental, you could disconnect your phone entirely. There is no 'installation fee' there is no need to wait in all day for an engineer to turn up in a van. You can relocate it in seconds (within the UK) and you aren't tied into long agreements....etc etc. 

Now of course prices could go up in the future, but they could also go down.  However I think it's more likely that as the average user consumes more and more data per month, the low data user will benefit from cheaper costs per GB.

Anyway, I hope this has given you something to think about. I still need my 50 meg connection. But for those people who just want to stay connected at a low cost and with minimal fuss, this seems like a good option.

General

This video took a lot longer than I anticipated, but here it is. I've uploaded part 1 in 720p and part 2 in 1080p. This was to avoid oddballs asking what was the point of doing a 720p review of a 1080p camera (as happened with my Extreme camera review). However this isn't really a solution to the problem because Youtube's 720p and 1080p video both bear very little relation to the footage that was originally shot by the camera.

I've converted the video and then editied it and then converted it again and then uploaded it to youtube which converted it again - you can therefore appreciate the fact that the footage you see on youtube doesn't really do justice to the quality of the originals. For example, the Youtube clips start off jerky and then smooth out after a few seconds...the originals of course don't do this.

This isn't a unique problem, if you read any photography magazines they are reviewing multimegapixel cameras and printing credit card sized sample shots on low dpi paper. Car magazines don't let you test the car out, AV magazines try and describe sound quality etc etc.... So like those examples all I can really do is give you an indication of the quality, not a direct demonstration of it.

As I mentioned in the video - the .h264 avi files created by this camera could not be imported into my iMovie so I had to spend a day converting them using MPEG Streamclip into .mp4 files. This was a major inconvenience and something that will probably stop me from using the camera again in the future. Now I'm using a Mac with iMovie. I haven't tried these in Final Cut or any PC editing package, so they may import fine into other editing packages.

Downloadable Test Clips

Therefore  to enable you to test out the original footage from this camera with your own editing packages or just play back some unmolested clips - I have uploaded a few short clips into a dropbox folder. These are all 1920x1080p 30fps clips and you download them in one 132mb zip file here. Or if you just want to try one out - here is a 16.7mb 9 second long clip. 

If you just want my opinion and all you want to do is film clear sharp HD footage and don't want to edit it on a Mac in iMovie, then I would strongly recommend this camera. I know that I mentioned the footage had a blue tinge, but unless I had put it up side by side with the Extreme cam, I don't think I'd have noticed it and I also wouldn't have noticed how much more vibrant the colours were on the RD32II either. The footage is very smooth without a dropped frame in sight and the sound quality is totally acceptable for a camera of this sort.

More Info

If you want to see the Camera on the Manufacturer's page here is a link. You can look at the specifications here, which tell you things like you can fit 41 mins of 1080p or 720p 60 video on a 4GB card, the recording battery life is 2.5hrs (it's 1.5 with the torch lit at the same time), charge time is 3 hours and the camera weighs 86g.

Photos

I'm really taken with the 5MP fisheye photos too, they can turn out surprisingly well. My technique when taking a photo is to take four or five shots of each scene, pointing the camera at a slightly different angle each time. When I get home I download the photos and choose the best framed picture of each scene. It reminds me of the days of getting films developed and hurriedly flicking through the envelope of photos hoping that I managed to get a good shot or two - but without all the expense. I've uploaded a gallery of photos from this camera here.

Where can you buy one.

I've seen this camera on sale for about $145 or £90 including shipping (budget for import duties too) which seems a little bit high, although it's early days - something like £75 would seem even more right. Whatever you do though, don't get it mixed up with the original RD32, that one takes 720p mjpeg video and isn't a patch on this. Look out for .h264, 1080p and laser mentioned in the specs- and don't expect it to always be called the RD32II either. 

Two places I've found selling this camera are below (there will be many others).

Chinabuye.com

Chinavasion.com

Also if you put the following line of text into a ebay search box and tick to search the Description and Internationally you will find some resellers.

1080p laser camera waterproof mini sports action

Part 1 and 2 of the review are below - but view these full screen in HD to get a better idea, and don't try to view the 1080p versions on an old computer unless you have a fire extinguisher at the ready.

UPDATE: 15/01/12 Importing the Video into editing packages - For iMovie users, you may want to try out a piece of software that was suggested to me by a reader - FLVCrunch, an easy way to convert the files into MP4s which can then be imported into the Apple editing package. Also look in the youtube comments for people reporting back with their results when using other software - the clips from this camera are reportedly working fine with Windows Live Movie Maker, Adobe Premiere and Vegas 9.0b.

UPDATE 17/01/12 I've had a few requests for downloadable 720p 60fps Clips - which is understandable as youtube can only display 30fps as can my editing package. So ..here is a link to a single clip (24mb)....and here is a zip file containing that clip and another five as well (173mb). If your computer is anything like mine, you may only get the full 60fps effect if you view these full screen. 

By the way I've just splashed out on a annual Mediafire Professional account, so you can download any files I upload quickly and without adverts from now on.

The subjects of this review are two of the three cameras Redleaf sent to me earlier in December. I suspect that they were beginning to think that I'd run off with them because these reviews did take a bit longer than I anticipated. My excuse is that I was waiting for some decent weather - and it's hardly stopped raining since they turned up. That and the fact that the 808#16 also turned up in the post one day before these, resulted in December 2011 being a very busy month for me.

The RD32 may be familiar to you from my earlier review, although this is an updated version, however the bullet camera is totally new to me. Both cameras unfortunately use the mjpeg video format, which in the past for me has resulted in dropped frames/jerky video and massive files sizes. You may recall from one of my earlier videos that I vowed never to buy another mjpeg camera....and I've stuck to that promise, but when someone sends two of them to you in a box from China, it would be rude not to give them a thorough test. Maybe these cameras will prove that mjpeg can produce good results after all.

The length of this video is rather ridiculous - you could watch an episode of the Simpsons in the time it takes to watch this, so perhaps I bit off a bit too much trying to review two cameras in the one video. 

I hope Redleaf don't mind, but It's going to take me another couple of weeks before I get the third of their camera reviews out. I really want to take the time with their 1080p .h264 camera to get some sample clips under optimum (sunny?) conditions so I can really do it justice.

So let me wish you a Happy New Year with a happy new video.

UPDATE 01/01/2012

In the video I mentioned that I would test out the battery life of the RD32 camera with the LED torch turned on. Well I've done that today and the results are quite impressive, the battery lasted 2.5 hours with all the LEDs turned and the camera recording. I still think that this camera would be an ideal road-rage evidence camera for cycle commuters....if only it could loop the video.

UPDATE 06/01/2012

BANNED!

I've been contacted by another HK company who advises that the RD36 Bullet Camera I reviewed is a patent infringement for one of their products and they've asked me (rather forcefully) to remove my video review. I have no personal stake in this dispute, although I am royally hacked off that I spent all those hours making a video, only to have to delete it a week later. I really don't have the time or inclination to get into the middle of a legal battle between two Chinese companies - and even though I don't think that legally I have to delete the video I have done so as a sign of goodwill. There are some things worth taking a stand on, then there are others that it's best just to let go. I really don't appreaciate the heavy handed manner in which the request was made, but I do understand that if I made a product that I believed someone else had copied, I wouldn't appreciate seeing publicity for that other product. That being said, my review of the camera wasn't exactly glowing, but I suppose even that could reflect on the original product. For example, if everyone wearing fake UGG boots was complaining that they fell apart and leaked then that would probably have a knock on effect the sales of the original UGGs. 

I can summarise the contents of my review here though - both the cameras I tested suffered from jerky video caused by the mjpeg video format used and I couldn't really recommend either one. The RD32 doesn't have purple video any more, if you get the right one (the one without the IR night vision and 20m rather than 30m water resistance). I may try to re-edit the video with just the RD32 part in it, but at the moment I'm concentrating on the next camera review (lets hope there aren't any problems with that one).

UPDATE - The video is back (minus the comparison with the Bullet camera). This makes the video pretty pointless now.

If you want to know everything about this mini camera - as mentioned in the video, you really need to get yourself over to the RC Groups Forum  and Chuck Lohr's excellent site .  On the RC Groups forum You'll even find links to some excellent PDF instructions

Right, I'm off to have some turkey, hope you are all having a good Christmas and you got something you wanted (I'll be playing about with my 3DS after lunch).

 29/12/11  UPDATE - Contrary to what I said in the review, it has since been discovered that the Webcam Function does not have sound. This is not the end of the world and I'm confident that no one buys this camera just to use it as a webcam - but I thought you should know.

As far as the FOV goes, yes the older #11 and Jumbo cameras do have a wider Field Of View than the #16- not massively so, but it it there. I tried to do some side by side comparison shots to show you how much there was in it - but unfortunately I've irreversibly managed to mess up the focus on my #16 camera and no amount of fiddling will sharpen it up. I'm going to order another one from eletoponline365, but in the meantime, further testing is postponed.

The RD32 Mk2 - A 720p 30fps camera with 20 metres water resistance and a 120 degree lens (I think this one might have fixed the purple colour problem of the original RD32.

A metal bullet style camera with 30 metre water resistance, a 137 degree lens and 720p 30fps avi video. 

Finally the top of the range model - A 1080p 30fps/ 720p 60fps RD32 lookalike with a 120 degree lens, H.264 encoding and HDMI out.

I will be doing a separate review of each of these cameras, each one will take me a couple of weeks to put together and I aim (but don't promise) to have all three reviews out before the new year. I'll start with the RD32 mk2 and work my way up the range. I've no idea how much these cameras are supposed to cost - but if you find any links to resellers, please feel free to post these in the comments.

If you buy the Solder:Time kit from Spikenzielabs you'll get the chance to assemble your own watch. It's not difficult, and I found it to be very satisfying. I like the fact that you constantly get reminded of your handiwork every time you look at your wrist to check the time.

When I got the soldering iron out it reminded me of the first time I soldered a chip. Back in 1989 I bought one of the first affordable Satellite TV receivers - the Amstrad SRX200. It had 16 channel buttons on the front, one for each channel. The problem was when they launched the next Astra satellite, this broadcast another 16 channels but the Amstrad box had no capacity left (due to incredible shortsightedness) . The solution was to send off for a mail-order chip that replaced one in the machine, allowing you to tune into the extra channels and repurpose the buttons above 10 to allow access to the extra channels. That day when I desoldered the old chip, soldered in the new one and switched on the machine to find that what I'd done had actually worked has stuck with me till this day.

I experienced a bit of that feeling again when I put the battery in this watch.

Here is the video showing how I got on.

Update - 1/12/11 - Andy from Spikenzielabs has been in touch to apologise for not sending me the sample one - I really wasn't expecting an apology - it was all just a bit of fun. So I just wanted to add that Andy and the team from Spikenzielabs are really nice people with a good fun product and they deserve your custom.