| Customer Reviews: Average Rating: 3.5/5 |
| Good for the Price as Long as YOU are Willing to Accept the Consequences!: Rating: 3/5 |
Lets start with the good stuff.
The camera is extremely cheap and it comes with a mini-tripod, a pouch with clip,a strap, software, all the cables you will need (including headphones) and even batteries.
The camera is small and is really easy to use Just press record and your off. No need to twiddle around with focus or anything like that.This camera is perfect for a begginer.
It runs on a SD card so no rewinding you can just scroll through all the videos you want. It also runs on batteries which means there is no need for a charger. The camera can record video and sound, take pictures and also be used as an MP3 player (God knows why). On paper, this is the camera of your dreams.
Now the bad news ... its rubbish!
The picture quality is perfectly fine outside in the sun. But as soon as you get inside where there isn't a window close by it unleashes its evil. You can literally hardly see anything in the camera. Objects magically turn into black shade and the view is covered with grain. Don't even bother using the digital zoom because everything becomes a pixelly mess as soon as you get close to 2.5x zoom and at 4x zoom you might aswell just get the first ever mobile phone that can take videos which will cost you about £5 off a website.
Then once we have gone off the picture we get to the sound. As soon as you get more than 2 metres away you can hardly hear a thing. I had to resort to using it as a webcam then plugging a microphone with a long cable in and taking my laptop everywhere with the camera for far away shots. If they had a microphone jack this wouldn't have been a problem.
The software that came with it is evil and crashes all the time. And sometimes when I plugged the camera in as a webcam and pressed record there was just a blue fuzzy screen then the computer restarted (probably a vista thing as it didnt say it was compatiable with vista).
Trust me on this one, do not plug any SD card more than 1gb. It will make the system fail and then you will have to wait 6 months to get a replacement.
I have now bought the Sanyo HD1000 (a 720p/1080i HD camcorder), instead as it is small and light like the DVR-510. But it does everything in the world possible and passes in everything the DVR-510 has failed in. It has a microphone jack but there is no need as the microphone is very good. It works extremely well in the dark and it has about a billion different features (the only problem is i costs £400).
If you want a small,simple and cheap camera and only need to work in light conditions and do not need a zoom this is the camera for you. It works great as a first camera, but when you want all the extras you will have to change. So you may want to keep you £60 for now and save up for a better camera unless you really need one ASAP. |
| super little camera: Rating: 5/5 |
i bought this as a present for my daughter she was 13 at the time and it made the perfect first video camera easy to use easy to download the only thing i could say is you need to have lots of batteries as they dont last very long. but other than that a perfect little camera. and once downloaded the pics are really good. so go on buy one!!
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| Vivitar camcorder: Rating: 3/5 |
I wanted a camcorder to take with me on holiday. I looked for a cheapish one which had a decent camera. I knew that vivitar wasn't a well known brand, but it seemed good on paper, I took the risk despite thinking 'if it's thats cheap, is it what it says it'll be.' When it arrived in the post, I took it out it's box and put in the batterys. The battery power isn't the best so I'd advise buying rechargeable batterys which seem to last a lot longer than standerd batterys.
I'd say overall that this camera is a good one. It is worth its money. It is small, has a good camera lens (5mp), comes with a case and tri-pod. The 4x zoom isn't the best as it causes the picture quality to decrease dramatically. I would recommend this for a camcorder if you're looking for a cheap, easy to use, basic camcorder. The internal memory isn't very big and it is a good idea to buy extra space for it. If you want to put your videos onto video websites such as Youtube or google video, the software isn't compatible with these website but you can still watch your videos onto your computer, TV or the camcorder.
Over all, I'd say this camera is worth getting if you're looking for a cheap camcorder good for taking photos, videos etc. |
| Not very good!: Rating: 2/5 |
This is the first digital camcorder i have bought and i quite regret it. I bought it mainly for recording myself drumming to edit and syncronize along with songs but the audio isn't nearly good enough to cope with that kind of noise and the video and audio often go out of sync. The picture (camera) quality of photos isn't very good and neither is the flash. It is also nearly impossible to take videos indoors at night when only the lights on the ceiling are on and it's so dark that you can barely make out peoples faces. Outdoors the video quality is alright but if its a windy day then the sound of the wind on the microphone near enough blocks out all other noise. It goes through batteries like mad aswell so your best bet is to buy rechargable ones. It's reasonably easy to use but it's aqward to hold and i find myself quite often covering the flash which by the way doesn't work on Macro Mode which by the way is pretty bad. Also the internal memory is terrible so you have to buy an S.D card ( the maximum is 1GB). The videos and videos however are extremely easy to put onto the pc via USB. My advise to anyone planning on buying this is definately to save a bit more money and get a half decent camcorder.
Hope this helps! |
| Cheap and cheery Digital Camcorder: Rating: 4/5 |
This is a really fun camcorder - especially for the price. It's easy to use and the manual helps you out when you get stuck. Used it on holiday and it survived very well and was easy to use and carry around because it's so small and light.
It does run through batteries quite quickly so you'll need re-chargeable ones otherwise it'll cost you more to run it than to buy it. |
