Isonic Snapbox HD665 Multifunctional High Definition Camcorder (Black)

by iSonic

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 2.5 x 1 x 4.2 inches ; 5.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0017TH6N2
• Item model number: Snapbox HD665
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,196 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 25, 2008

Product Description

High Definition Video Camera, 5 Mega Pixels Digital Still camera

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Neat little gadget for the price., September 23, 2008

By 

Ken M (Oxnard, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Isonic Snapbox HD665 Multifunctional High Definition Camcorder (Black) (Electronics)

I have owned the iSonic HD665 Snapbox for about four days. I am writing this to make some information available for others considering a purchase.

The native resolution of the image sensor is 5 mega pixels. The video codec is a 'MPEG-4 AVC (H .264)'.

The microphone is mounted on top of the device so it will pick up the camera operator's voice way louder than that of someone in front of the camera at an equal distance.

For still pictures, The camera allows you to select from 2MP(1600x1200), 5MP (2592x1944), and 11MP (3744x2808) resolutions. The last setting is just a 'blow up' of the native resolution. Most any picture editing program will do that. There might be some hidden advantage to it so I will reserve further comment. The pictures I took indoors with room light or the built in 'flash' came out a bit blurry due to the slow 'shutter' speeds and my hand movement. The 'flash' is actually a bright white LED that seemed to help, only out to a few feet in distance. The pictures I took outdoors, in well lit areas, came out in good focus. Compression on the jpg pictures 'seems' a bit high to me and is not selectable. The 5M setting will produce a file of about 1.25MB in size. I have uploaded a picture to the Image Gallery so that you all could judge the quality for yourselves.

The HD video recorder did not do well in low light as compared to a 'Flip Video Ultra'. The Flip Video is only 640x480, so that might not be a fair comparison. The HD665 performed well, outdoors, in well lit locations and in brightly lit rooms. The compression, again, 'seemed' a bit too high, if I viewed the videos within about two feet of my 42 inch HDTV I could easily see the compression artifacts (noise). From eight or ten feet away the videos looked good (maybe SVHS quality or better) to me. On a 17 inch computer monitor, they looked very good.

The lens has a three position switch on the side to adjust the focus distance. Macro mode has a center of 20cm as the focus, max and min distances were not listed. Portrait mode is listed as 90cm to 200cm as the focus range. Normal mode has a range listed of 200cm to infinity.

The battery is a Lithium-ion rechargeable NP60, 1050 mAh (If buying a replacement, be sure to look at a picture, it seems the NP60 has two different form factors). The NP60 type is apparently a common battery that can be had for around $10.

The HD665 is listed a being able to use standard SD/MMC memory cards. I had an old no-name 2GB SD card that did not work. Luckily, I bought a 2GB Kingston SD for about $12 (here on Amazon.com) that worked just fine. With the 2GB SD card, the HD665 reports one hour of video recording capacity available and/or 1392 5MP jpg picture storage space available.

This device is also a MP3 player and a voice recorder. I did not buy it for that so I will reserve comment until I get time to play.

I will update this later, after I have more time to play with the HD665. I hesitated to award a score of any stars due to my lack of use with the product. I only went for 4 stars because the advertisement mentions a 'photo flash' and a 11MP resolution. That is, from my experience, just a tiny bit deceptive. Otherwise, the unit seems to work well.

ken

Added info:

I have had a full week to experiment with this camera and have really started to like it, a lot. It just took a little 'getting used to'. I discovered a setting called 'Night Mode' that greatly improved the low light performance, on both motion and still pix. The indoor still pix are no longer blurred, with reasonable light.

I purchased a 133x 4GB SD memory card for about $19.00. That gives me over two hours of HD video storage, and about 4 hours of VGA video.

I also purchased a spare battery. The battery is a 1200 mAh that is listed as being compatible with a Fuji NP60. The battery was a bargain at about $8.00.

The camera turns on when I flip open the monitor screen and turns off when the screen is moved to the closed position. There are two record buttons, one for video and one for still pictures. I found this very easy to use.

If there were some way to tweak the amount of video compression this camera would be a solid 5 star unit. I will, however, stick with my initial 4 star rating.

:)

k

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Isonic HD camera review, July 14, 2008

By 

Corey A. Zabel (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Isonic Snapbox HD665 Multifunctional High Definition Camcorder (Black) (Electronics)

This camera has been perfect for me. All I was after was something digital to get some practice sessions to the computer. I was expecting poor quality for 150 dollars. What I got was a lot better then what I thought I would get.

The interface has been easy to use even with my large fingers. It attached to my tripod perfectly. I got about 40 minutes of standard def video on a battery charge. The device is extremely light weight and black is a great color. No shiny silver object dangling above the table distracting people.

This camera does not take breathtaking pictures. I takes pictures that are good if things are situated. This camera just doesn't have effective image stabilization or great exposure control. Low light is grainy. Your not going to take great photos with any 150 dollar camera. However, the quality of videos and photos have been perfect for my needs.

This was a great purchase for me. I gave it 5 stars based on its merits as a 150 dollar camera. For 400 I would be disappointed. But I didn't pay 400

It came with a belt loop case software HDMI(custom interface to the camera looks like a mini cable on one end) cable USB cable Battery..... I was impressed with the cable selection.

I have shot 5 hours of video with it and have owned it for a week. So far I am happy with my purchase

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great camcorder, but the compatibility with editing software leaves a lot to be desired., February 20, 2009

By 

Ben "Pizza Enthusiast" (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Isonic Snapbox HD665 Multifunctional High Definition Camcorder (Black) (Electronics)

Compared to other camcorders available at prices around $100-$150, this one takes the cake. In my opinion, it's the best camcorder you can buy for under $200. However, as one might expect, it still has its flaws.

VIDEO
Even when not filming in HD mode, the picture you get is incredible. Needless to say, HD mode is even more amazing. The picture loses a little bit of quality when played back on a computer, but it looks great if you hook it up to a TV.

AUDIO
The sound quality is top notch. Usually with a cheap camcorder you really lose out on the quality of the audio, but the sound this camcorder picks up is even clearer than the picture. My only complaint with the audio is that anyone speaking from over 15 feet away doesn't get picked up very well, but that is to be expected from camcorders of this size.

PICTURES
In short, if you take pictures with this camcorder they won't look quite as good as pictures taken with a digital camera, but they're still high enough in quality to satisfy most people. If you just need something to snap some pictures on vacation, or while you're out and about, this camcorder will get the job done.

FEATURES
There are 4 modes on this camcorder: video, picture/camera, voice recording, and it's an MP3 player. I've only used the video and picture modes, so I can't say much about the other two modes right now, though if the audio quality is anything to judge by then I imagine the voice recorder is high in quality.

The features on this camera include a 3" flip out LCD that can be turned to face in 3 directions (but not upwards, which sucks), a light on the front for night (it's not that strong, though), flash-mode for pictures, and various effects such as stabilization and black and white mode. As I've found with other cheap camcorders, utilizing the effects while filming takes away from the video quality and sometimes even ruins the picture altogether (sometimes the picture will lag). Fortunately, I haven't needed to use the effects often.

FLAWS
Aside from what I've already mentioned, there's only one major flaw with this camcorder, and that's its compatibility with your computer and/or video editing software.

Initially, the videos uploaded to my computer without trouble, but there were a few that it wouldn't play back for lack of a certain codec. My computer is about 5 years old, so the good news is that buyers with newer computers likely won't have the same problem as me.

The real bummer about this camcorder, and the reason I only rated it 4 stars overall, is that Windows Movie Maker (the default video editing software just about everyone has on their computer) can't handle the video clips if you edit them in any way. Windows Movie Maker 2.1 is the recommended version for this camcorder, but it simply does not work. Any video that is imported to WMM and edited will turn into a black or green screen and just play the audio. The only way around the problem is to convert your video files first, which isn't only a pain but unfortunately causes your videos to lose a lot of picture quality as well. I'm still working on a simpler solution to this problem, but as far as I know this is the only way around the problem.