Aiptek A-HD+ 1080P High Definition Camcorder

This is a cheesey plastic trinket-like getup, but works pretty well. Amazing to get such a simple yet capable package at this price. My 8-year-old nephew picked the thing up and just started making movies and using most of the features in minutes, without any hand holding. There are only a few buttons, all of which are intuitive. This thing is idiot-proof. No user guide necessary. Open the dsiplay and it's on, close it and it's off. Press the red front button to start and again to stop. That's almost all you need. Plugging into your TV is also trivial. The built-in screen is beautifully clear with nice resolution, and identical to what you see when you view it via TV. Another cool feature is being able to swivel the screen all the way around upside-down to face you and it inverts itself to stay right-side up. On the down side... The mic is under-powered. It's also facing the shooter instead of the subjects! I had to keep telling kids to talk as loud as they can, wher... Read more

This camera has great image quality, and was a great buy. But one thing that frustrated me (before buying) was that I couldn't find much info about the more advanced specs. But luckily, I have done the homework for you ;) Here are some things you might want to know: -The CMOS is 5MP native (resolution: 2592 x 1944) don't bother with the 8MP it just 'blows up' the image (interpolation) -The lens, even though the image quality is excellent, is the weak point of this camera. Its a fixed focus without any optical zoom. Theres only digital zoom which decreases the quality the farther its zoomed in, but not too badly. The 2 focus modes, Normal: Autofocuses from 30cm to infinity. Best for general purpose video recording. Nothing is really out of focus unless its too close to the camera. Though it can be slow at times. Macro: For close-ups. Objects/people look alot clearer/better when focused on than with the normal focus mode, and everything in the background is blurred. But... Read more

This is a good, portable and lightweight camera, but audio issues keep it from being 5 stars. Video is good and on par for a $150 camera. The high-def modes look good, but beware of shaking and image stabilazation. It has no image stabilazation built in, do use a tripod (it's got a standard tripod mount on the bottom) where possible to get the best shots. Low light images could be better. It works best outside or in well lit rooms. Audio is poor. Anything more than two feet away and it barely picks it up. I always carry it around to shoot videos for YouTube, I'm glad I purchased it.

Bought this camera for something small to take on vacation. Does a great job. The .MOV files it creates are awkward on my PC as I have to convert them to .mpg's before using my edit software but it's really quite painless. It has 5 video resolutions. CIF is a 30 frame low resolution that is good for anything you might want to put on youtube. D1 is what I use most. It's a DVD quality resolution that has a real nice picture but isn't real "Jerky" like the 3 HD resolutions. D1 .mov can also be converted to mpg's with free software like Prisim. The HD modes have an amazing picture but I can't hold the camera still enough to get a steady shot. You really really really need a tri-pod if you want to make the most of the HD modes. I'm not even kidding. In full hd you would have to have the steadiness of a neuro surgeon to get a steady shot, it's super sensitive to vibration. having said all that, it will fit in my shirt pocket and takes great video. The battery looks like a cell phone batte... Read more

People want 1080p for the quality, not the pixel count. This product only delivers the latter. I was really excited but also very skeptical of this product when I found it at Best buy. 1080p for $150? Somethings not right. After reading the generally positive reviews I figured that the lack of expensive lenses or mechanical parts must be the reason for it being so cheap. I tested the camera multiple times giving it the benefit of the doubt. I started in lower light settings, then moved to sunny motion and finally tried sunny still shots, all with very disappointing results. Even a subject just sitting and talking, not moving much was fuzzy and choppy. I tried All except the lowest resolution setting. Even at 480p the video just didn't look right. The first thing you notice is the frame rate. It's bad, upon slow motion inspection, it's not that there are less than 30 frames per second, it's that the high compression causes any movement to undulate and warp giving the impressi... Read more