Review Chobi Cam - The World’s Most Minimal Camera
Most recently, Habré was the announcement of a mini camera Chobi Cam . It was one of the few times when I succumbed to the Wow-effect and immediately ordered the described device. And now I present to the public the review of the above device.
After opening the parcel, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the camera is shipped in a metal box, and not wrapped in a bubbled polyethylene, as is often the case with Chinese goods. Well, this is very useful, you will not have to worry about the safety of the device.
')
The manufacturer focuses on the possibility of recording HD video, about the possibility of working in camera mode, not a word ...
Inside the box is plastic packaging with a device.
Plastic looks so-so, fragile. From the outside it looks like a velvet coating.
Under the plastic cover - another compartment for accessories.
It turns out with the device in the kit there is still a lot of everything that is necessary and useful (but more on that later).
The case is glossy. There is a promo sticker on the case that as if tells us that the little animal can take a photo with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 and a video with a resolution of 1280 x 960, and can also record sound.
The body itself is quite soiled. Fingerprints remain many steps, but it doesn’t really bother me because the device will be used as a keychain. Yes, and erased fingerprints with a cloth quite well.
As a photo and video camera storage, it can use a microSD card of up to 4 GB. I only had a 1 GB card available. Map not included.
You can drain the data on the computer or charge the device via USB.
On the top panel there are two control buttons.
The on / off button is also a trigger when taking photos, and also allows you to start / stop video recording. With a single press starts recording, with a long press, the device turns off.
The second button is designed to change the shooting mode - photo / video.
The kit includes:
Cables are carefully marked. So that the user does not enter into a stupor when trying to merge a photo onto a computer through a charging cable.
The charger cable is very similar to the 2.5 mm headphone jack.
The charger is a strange combination of transparent plastic and metal ...
... from the first time it is difficult to understand why, this metal cylinder is still needed.
The size of the charger is slightly larger than a regular finger-type battery, so there should not be any inconvenience when carrying it in your pocket.
Now let's see what this miracle of technology can do ...
Some facts about the device:
It seems that the manufacturers deliberately did not indicate the possibility of shooting photos on the package.
Photos turn out strange - the quality is lame on all four limbs.
Ok, it didn't work out with landscapes, we try shooting at a smaller distance ...
As you can see, the situation is similar. The texts on the blades are completely unreadable.
For macro photography, the camera is also clearly not intended.
Go to the video ...
The video is really, almost the stated size.
It's terribly frustrating that the date of the recording is displayed on the video Okay, there the correct date would be displayed, but the camera says that it is now 2007, and it is not clear how to fix it. No documentation is supplied with the device, there is also no auxiliary software, so it is not clear how to deal with this problem.
The video turns out 128 1 x 960. Because of this, a lot of problems. Firstly, thumbnails in the explorer are not displayed, and secondly in VirtualDub a bjaka is obtained.
If there were at least the manufacturer’s contacts on the package, it would be possible to ask for the device firmware to be corrected (with the Chinese it is, theoretically, possible), but since there are no texts anywhere and it is not known who produces these cameras, it seems to me that they will have to live with it. The video turns out to be broken (although the players are displayed correctly. Well, at least the player developers care about the users in this way, allowing you to watch even broken videos. I tested on VLC and Windows Media Player - everything is ok).
That's what Virtual Dub tells us about the video file format ...
The quality of the video is also partly lame. First of all, when moving, everything “floats”, with objects, the contours become fuzzy.
In low light quality becomes worse, objects become poorly distinguishable.
The sound is also so-so. Extraneous noises are heard.
An example of a recorded video file .
Another example of what marketing solves :)
Behind the wonderful packaging is hidden very mediocre implementation.
There are almost no chances to photograph documents with the device; texts are not visible. Shooting indoors is almost impossible due to low light. The quality of landscape photos is also quite low.
The video shows artifacts in the form of pink vertical lines (sometimes appearing, not always visible). The video is broken, although it is played in players.
The sound quality is poor. I'm not so sure that if, for example, I decide to film the process of communication with the traffic police or tax, then the resulting material will be suitable for viewing / listening as not the fact that the voices will be distinguishable.
In general, the money paid for the device ($ 148 for the device + $ 20 for delivery to England (the store does not send to Ukraine indicated in the previous article) + $ 14 for delivery to Ukraine) is not worth it.
Well, this is my punishment for haste.
And yes, today a similar camera priced at 3 times less than I got on DealExtreme is on sale .
Packaging
After opening the parcel, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the camera is shipped in a metal box, and not wrapped in a bubbled polyethylene, as is often the case with Chinese goods. Well, this is very useful, you will not have to worry about the safety of the device.
')
The manufacturer focuses on the possibility of recording HD video, about the possibility of working in camera mode, not a word ...
Inside the box is plastic packaging with a device.
Plastic looks so-so, fragile. From the outside it looks like a velvet coating.
Under the plastic cover - another compartment for accessories.
It turns out with the device in the kit there is still a lot of everything that is necessary and useful (but more on that later).
Iron
The case is glossy. There is a promo sticker on the case that as if tells us that the little animal can take a photo with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 and a video with a resolution of 1280 x 960, and can also record sound.
The body itself is quite soiled. Fingerprints remain many steps, but it doesn’t really bother me because the device will be used as a keychain. Yes, and erased fingerprints with a cloth quite well.
As a photo and video camera storage, it can use a microSD card of up to 4 GB. I only had a 1 GB card available. Map not included.
You can drain the data on the computer or charge the device via USB.
On the top panel there are two control buttons.
The on / off button is also a trigger when taking photos, and also allows you to start / stop video recording. With a single press starts recording, with a long press, the device turns off.
The second button is designed to change the shooting mode - photo / video.
The kit includes:
- Camera
- Lace
- USB data cable
- USB charging cable
- An incomprehensible cylindrical thing, which (judging by a cursory external examination) is most likely a charger from an AA battery
Cables are carefully marked. So that the user does not enter into a stupor when trying to merge a photo onto a computer through a charging cable.
The charger cable is very similar to the 2.5 mm headphone jack.
The charger is a strange combination of transparent plastic and metal ...
... from the first time it is difficult to understand why, this metal cylinder is still needed.
The size of the charger is slightly larger than a regular finger-type battery, so there should not be any inconvenience when carrying it in your pocket.
Test Drive
Now let's see what this miracle of technology can do ...
Some facts about the device:
- All photos and videos are recorded on a memory card in the _REC folder.
- You cannot adjust the image size and video resolution.
- Windows 7 does not display previews of recorded video files in Explorer.
- The video file is quite large. About 1 MB per second video.
- Photos, on average, weigh 230 KB.
- The device is not recognized as a webcam when connecting to a computer.
A photo
It seems that the manufacturers deliberately did not indicate the possibility of shooting photos on the package.
Photos turn out strange - the quality is lame on all four limbs.
Ok, it didn't work out with landscapes, we try shooting at a smaller distance ...
As you can see, the situation is similar. The texts on the blades are completely unreadable.
For macro photography, the camera is also clearly not intended.
Video
Go to the video ...
The video is really, almost the stated size.
It's terribly frustrating that the date of the recording is displayed on the video Okay, there the correct date would be displayed, but the camera says that it is now 2007, and it is not clear how to fix it. No documentation is supplied with the device, there is also no auxiliary software, so it is not clear how to deal with this problem.
The video turns out 128 1 x 960. Because of this, a lot of problems. Firstly, thumbnails in the explorer are not displayed, and secondly in VirtualDub a bjaka is obtained.
If there were at least the manufacturer’s contacts on the package, it would be possible to ask for the device firmware to be corrected (with the Chinese it is, theoretically, possible), but since there are no texts anywhere and it is not known who produces these cameras, it seems to me that they will have to live with it. The video turns out to be broken (although the players are displayed correctly. Well, at least the player developers care about the users in this way, allowing you to watch even broken videos. I tested on VLC and Windows Media Player - everything is ok).
That's what Virtual Dub tells us about the video file format ...
The quality of the video is also partly lame. First of all, when moving, everything “floats”, with objects, the contours become fuzzy.
In low light quality becomes worse, objects become poorly distinguishable.
The sound is also so-so. Extraneous noises are heard.
An example of a recorded video file .
findings
Another example of what marketing solves :)
Behind the wonderful packaging is hidden very mediocre implementation.
There are almost no chances to photograph documents with the device; texts are not visible. Shooting indoors is almost impossible due to low light. The quality of landscape photos is also quite low.
The video shows artifacts in the form of pink vertical lines (sometimes appearing, not always visible). The video is broken, although it is played in players.
The sound quality is poor. I'm not so sure that if, for example, I decide to film the process of communication with the traffic police or tax, then the resulting material will be suitable for viewing / listening as not the fact that the voices will be distinguishable.
In general, the money paid for the device ($ 148 for the device + $ 20 for delivery to England (the store does not send to Ukraine indicated in the previous article) + $ 14 for delivery to Ukraine) is not worth it.
Well, this is my punishment for haste.
And yes, today a similar camera priced at 3 times less than I got on DealExtreme is on sale .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/94251/
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