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Mini camcorders may be ideal for convenient videoing of friends and family, but their tiny displays aren’t ideal for showing off the results immediately. Medion’s latest mini camcorder makes a big effort to change this, with a comparatively massive 3.5in display.
The large display, the shape and colour scheme, make the P47350 HD reminiscent of numerous smartphones; however, it has a rather nifty trick that none of them can imitate. Push the upper half of the camcorder with your thumb to left and it pivots up and through 90 degrees. This turns on the camcorder and reveals the controls underneath. Best of all though, it provides you with a comfortable handgrip, while the screen is aligned correctly for shooting widescreen video. For all its clever folding design, the P47350 HD is big by mini camcorder standards, though it’s still lightweight and easily pocketable.
The only physical button is used to start shooting. Unfortunately it’s too closely surrounded by touch-sensitive controls, and we found ourselves accidentally changing resolutions between recordings. Speaking of which, there are two main options: 720p video at 60fps with a bit-rate of 4.4Mbit/s, and 1080p at 30fps using 8.6Mbit/s.
Those bit-rates seemed suspiciously low to us, and testing proved our hunch to be well-founded. The video was nastily compressed, with little fine detail. Colours were also well out of sorts, with red and blue casts being apparent – in fact it rendered our white walls in anything but white. Worst of all was some nasty bloom from brighter parts of the image.
Whether shooting video, or watching it back afterwards, the big screen is disappointing. Medion didn’t disclose the resolution to us, but we’d bet it’s not very high. Everything looks blurry, and contrast is poor. We can’t say whether all these problems are purely down to the screen, with the poor video quality obviously contributing, but frankly it doesn’t matter.
The P47350 HD has no built in memory, and instead uses an SDHC-compatible memory card slot. A 2GB SD card is provided, which will give you around half-an-hour of footage at 1080p, and twice that in 720p mode. 8GB SDHC cards, holding four times these quantities, can be had for under £10 online.
There’s plenty of other kit in the box too. A nylon pouch prevents that big screen from getting scratched; plus there’s a lanyard to keep it safe in use. Medion must be applauded for providing an HDMI to mini HDMI cable for playing back footage on your TV; and a combined AV and USB lead is also bundled.
Surprisingly, two small Li-ion batteries are provided. Each one lasted for an acceptable 68 minutes in our continuous usage test. It’s great to have a spare battery, but they can’t be charged in the camcorder via USB. Instead a separate mains charger is provided (something else to carry on holiday). Personally, we prefer the simplicity of Flip’s mini camcorders, with their built-in storage and USB-chargeable batteries.
If showing video to others on the screen is a bigger priority than the quality of the video itself, then the P47350 HD may appeal. It’s certainly cheap at just £99, and the feeling of value is reinforced by all the extras in the box, though many of these prove to be annoyances rather than boons. It’s an interesting device, and we love the twisting display, but poor video quality, the blurry display, and ease-of-use issues mean we can’t recommend it.
Spend some extra money and you could get Flip’s excellent new Ultra HD (below). If you’re looking for a bargain, then we’d recommend the Kodak PlaySport instead, available for only £85 from www.sundigital.co.uk.
