Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 stars4k30 and 1080p120...
Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2016
Pros:
*Great 4k and 1080p/120 option.
*Excellent touchscreen performance (smooth, no lag, responsive)
*exceptional audio for an action cam
*Built in tripod adapter
*excellent app (not quite as easy as go pro, some icons aren’t what you expect them to be)
*Can run directly off USB power bank with or without the internal battery installed.
*Available in white to help with heat if recording outside on hot summer days.
Cons:
*128gb card support seems sketchy, their site lists 6 cards they recommend and they are all 64gb cards. I have 2 of the cards they recommend (actually 4 of each), both types work perfectly, but I also have the 128gb versions of those same cards and they do not work. I have formatted in camera and on pc with different block sizes but they all pretty much start recording, then crash when the file size limit is reached producing a corrupt file on the card. I believe a firmware update can and will fix this but as of version 1.12 (1.07 default) it is still a no go.
**this is not really a “con” of the camera but when running direct off USB power source with no internal battery installed I seem to be limited to 3ft cable length in certain situations. With a 6ft cable the cam will shut down shortly after recording starts. I have successfully recorded 15 straight hours (minus card swaps every2h18m) with a USB power bank and 3ft cable. I tested this at home and found that one of my AC powered USB hubs was able to power this device successfully on a 6ft USB cable but none of my battery powered USB banks could do this. I suspect the cam is running very close to the 2.4a limit so I will try a male-male-female “Y” cable to boost power to see if this resolves the “issue”
IMO:
I have a very specific use case where I need to record up to 18 hours of fishing from a full size bass boat. I have a gopro hero3 white, a hero session and now this Yi2. I do not have any of the hero4 editions, I had the black but it would overheat every so often and shut down so it was returned. This part of the review will be comparing this against those other models.
Up to now, the best “overall” solution I had found was a Hero3 white with battery eliminator and waterproof housing mod. This setup allows me to record no matter what the weather conditions but it can be cumbersome changing cards, always required an external power source (batteries were always dead because I never use or charge them), always had to set the date/time (battery eliminated), had muffled/unsuable audio (waterproof housing) and it was 1080p30 max.
The Hero Session with its integrated battery, waterproofing and excellent dual microphones was a good upgrade and compromise. The “upgrade” being excellent audio, great video… as long as the sun was behind us and protune was enabled, and 1080p60 max. The “compromise” being it was not “waterproof’ while charging and the if the sun was facing the cam the subject would be too dark. However, If the weather turned I just unhooked the charger, closed the door and it was weatherproof for as long as the battery could hold. I also didn’t have to remember to set the date/time since it always had power from the internal battery.
The Yi 4k cam has all the resolutions and modes you could want. The touchscreen works incredibly well, is fluid, is responsive and is excellent for framing shots or checking status without always needing the app. The app works well and connects much faster than the gopro app but the controls in the gopro app are clearer and easier to use. In the Yi app there are some icons for switching video/photo and they appear to do the opposite of what I expect, however, I only really use the app to check the framing after a high-speed run (easier than getting behind the cam when it is mounted)
The things that set this apart for me are more mechanical, I can run this cam directly off a usb power bank with no battery installed in the camera (hero3 white can do this, hero session does not) which greatly reduces heat out on a hot summer day. (the hero3 and session will get so hot you can't hold them... but they still ran and the session is waterproof so I can cool it off in the lake) It is available in white which makes a huge difference in the amount of heat this thing absorbs. It shoots 4k and 1080p/120 along with a host of other modes including in-camera time lapse video.
Of course, all of this is accomplished outside of the waterproof housing. This still leaves me needing the hero3 white setup for rainy days but I was in the same situation with the session
I think MarkHawkCam has a complete review of the technical aspects on youtube ([...]) and covers everything in depth. Here is a sample running video I captured and uploaded right off the card to youtube with no enhancement: [...]
Overall, for me, this cam fits in my arsenal at a very fair price. It doesn’t replace any of the other cams I am already using but it my new primary camera.
