I have one. What I like:
1) No annoying software forced on you if you don't want it. Plug it into your USB and you'll probably be able to view the pics and videos through your default player.
2) Fairly quick startup, just press the button and in a few seconds you're ready to go.
3) Nice big screen on the back makes it easy to see what you're filming.

What I don't like:
1) "Touch" screen is not very good. UI is clunky due to slow response and zoom via the touch screen is difficult.
2) Awful mic placement. It's better designed to take "vertical" movies. I try to take horizontal movies, similar to a monitor screen and I swear I cover the mic every single time. The mic is right on the edge you would hold it if you were holding a camera.
3) I have yet to find a portable device that takes good close up pics. This is no exception.
4) Stabilization is okay at best. Most of the time it doesn't know what it should be stabilizing but it's good with human faces.

For $40 or $45 it's a pretty good deal as you don't mind dealing with some annoyances with the touch screen menu system.

ThunderThighs wrote:Thanks for the great birthday wishes, folks. But you're a day early.

Woot Wikipedia Page

I even checked the earliest version of the article referring to the company: here


And last year, the birthday congratulations came on the 12th:

Can you pause while recording. My ps camera and aiptek camcorder does not allow for pausing while recording. have to edit on the pc.

These are refurbs,can anyone who bought one in the past tell me if they look like they are new ?

I have 3 of these.. they take good hd video and just ok pictures.
The good..
Good 1080 video if you need to get some stock footage fast.
Light weight.
Flip out Usb so you don't have to find a cable.

The bad.
No memory expansion. You have to pull every thing off right away.
The lens is extruded slightly from the front of the cammera. So if you set it down on a table you will scratch the lens.

The horrible.
Autofocus sucks. Do not expect to record any action shots.
After time the sensor will be come blurry from out door lighting. Makes eveything you record or take a picture of blurry.
I have lost a lot of footage randomly. From not downloading everything to a computer first... Do not know what happened, I just left videos on there to download later....
The tripod mount is a joke.. plastic stripped out first time.. I ended up having to use a helicoil in them so I could screw the pod on..
Also the cammera records in wide format so you have to use the cammera on its side (land scape) other wise you get a tall frame.

All in all. Not bad for the price, however I am not in for any... I am avoiding Sony because of this..
My luck I would get one that I had already returned for referbishment.


Sorry for the comment this was done on my phone.. :s

I have a Kodak Zi8 and have had nothing but problems with the software that comes with it. I've tried alternate software, but most seem to just show black for the video, which is highly annoying.

If anyone has used this, how is the software that comes with it? Have you used any other 3rd party software successfully with it? Is it easy to burn a DVD for someone?

I love the Zi8, but if you can't use the video when you're done, it becomes pretty worthless.

OK, I can't see anywhere that it talks about the zoom except for zooming in on pictures already taken. Anyone know what the zoom specs are on this? Maybe I just missed it?

gftitan wrote:OK, I can't see anywhere that it talks about the zoom except for zooming in on pictures already taken. Anyone know what the zoom specs are on this? Maybe I just missed it?

It's all digital zoom. So it's not going to be pretty (digital zoom is equivalent to zooming in on a picture/video after it's taken. If you need to zoom more than 2-3x, it's going to look like crap.

I use this as my cheap camera for situations where I'm worried my good camera might get damaged. It takes very decent pictures (but there is no image stabilization, so you must be very steady). The video is great for most uses, but don't expect to use this for action shots or low-light shooting. Works well for kids/pets doing cute things indoors. Works OK outdoors. The sound is not very good, and if it tries focusing, it will make weird clicking noises.

In all honesty, this is a glorified cell phone camera. If you have a camera with a 6+ megapixel camera, then this isn't going to be much better. Although, I'd imagine this would be better for young ones to play with than a phone.

ThunderThighs wrote:Can you give some more details? That always helps.

ooH, I can help with that. Groupon is a website in which they have multiple daily deals as well as travel deals and NOW deals that can be used in the short term. The idea here is that the merchant is willing to sell at a discounted price as long as there are a minimum amount of consumer purchases. When enough people place an order to hit the minimum mark, the deal becomes active and all purchasers get the discount. It's really quite genius. Is that enough detail?

Happy Birthday Woot. I may have to get one of these. How are they for children? Anyone use them at school? I want to use them with kids ages 5-10.

ThunderThighs wrote:Thanks for the great birthday wishes, folks. But you're a day early.

Woot Wikipedia Page

If y'all would have got the Woot! Calendar in the December Woot! Off, you would know that Woot was launched 7/12/04

Cannot purchase...it spins and spins after hitting the crazy large button then eventually gives a 404 error.

ThunderThighs wrote:Ooooooh, I love a good Amazon conspiracy theory! Unfortunately, that's not one. Birthday has been July 12 since July 12, 2004 when Woot went live.

Today is actually July 10. Amazon bought the calendar and moved the whole thing ahead retroactively from 2004. So tomorrow will appear as July 12 and be Woot!'s birthday, but it will actually be July 11.

Purchased a black one, thanks Woot. I needed something to take pics and vids of my furry kids!

@[gftitan"] Anyone know what the zoom specs are on this? Maybe I just missed it?

The zoom is up to 4X but it's pixel reduction so at 4x it's about fuzzy at best.

Today might not be Woot's birthday, but you can still goto a 7-11 and get a free slurpee!

I think people put 7/11 on their calander so that they remember to stay up till midnight, thinking that if they put 7/12, by the time they realize it, it will be to late.

waynebrantley wrote:Cannot purchase...it spins and spins after hitting the crazy large button then eventually gives a 404 error.

Same problem here! I've emailed WOOT in hopes they'll resolve the issue in time. If not, maybe we'll be dodging a bullet... the reviews of this camera are just so-so.

danchall wrote:I even checked the earliest version of the article referring to the company: here


And last year, the birthday congratulations came on the 12th:

They sure are thorough, going back and editing the internet history to change Jully 11 to July 12!

Does anyone know if this camera can be attached to a tripod? I didn't see anything about that in the specs. Unless of course I'm overlooking it somewhere in the info.

silkykitty wrote:Does anyone know if this camera can be attached to a tripod? ...

I think that's a YES. Someone else mentioned it, saying the plastic threads stripped out easily.

$40? Can't beat that. I have a 5 year old who loves taking pictures and videos. "Here you go son, I promise not to freak out when you drop this one."

I received one as a gift. Returned it within a week to get $100 to spend on something else. I would not have returned it for $40. This was 6 months ago, so all I really remember was great video quality, poor stills, tolerable touch screen interface, annoying Sony software, and a flaky orientation sensor.

Not sure where everyone got July 11 from... it's on my calendar for July 12. Regardless of what Wikipedia says, all other Birthday Bucket of Coral have been on July 12.

jeffott wrote:I think people put 7/11 on their calander so that they remember to stay up till midnight, thinking that if they put 7/12, by the time they realize it, it will be to late.

Bingo. I set it for July 12 and set an alarm for 12 hours earlier.

Got one of these recently, its a pretty sophisticated piece of technology for $50.

Not having flash is a bit of an annoyance.

The fold out USB is nice, no losing the charging/data cable.

Picture and video is better than a HTC Evo 3d, and on par with a Galaxy S2.

Basically, I doubt you can get a better touch screen camera than this for $50.

This looks perfect for my students! If they do manage to destroy one, I'm not out much $. In for 3.

You're as old as you feel and you feel soft and squishy .... but now you are shiney and new so you don't need to lie about your age.

I'm looking to buy it mainly to take pictures. Any users out there have experience (good and bad) with using it for pictures? Is there a flash?

mibutterflywingz wrote:I'm looking to buy it mainly to take pictures. Any users out there have experience (good and bad) with using it for pictures? Is there a flash?

From the reviews I read, there is no flash & the quality of the photos is better than the quality of the video.

silkykitty wrote:Does anyone know if this camera can be attached to a tripod? I didn't see anything about that in the specs. Unless of course I'm overlooking it somewhere in the info.

Yep, from the reviews I read there is a tripod attachment option but folks complained about it.

gftitan wrote:OK, I can't see anywhere that it talks about the zoom except for zooming in on pictures already taken. Anyone know what the zoom specs are on this? Maybe I just missed it?

Other web sites selling this same product had specs which included 4x Digital Zoom & the videos I watched showed the digital zoom is adjusted on the touch screen during operation.

Quit smoking for a week and get yourself a bloggie!

jprins wrote:Yeah. I was going to say that everyone is a day early. I have it in my Google calendar.

I looked at the Bloggie line when getting a pocket camcorder a few months ago. They seemed decent, but the lack of expandable/removable memory was a deal-breaker.

Same, Kakow!

Hodakaroadtoad wrote:I have a Kodak Zi8 and have had nothing but problems with the software that comes with it. I've tried alternate software, but most seem to just show black for the video, which is highly annoying.

If anyone has used this, how is the software that comes with it? Have you used any other 3rd party software successfully with it? Is it easy to burn a DVD for someone?

I love the Zi8, but if you can't use the video when you're done, it becomes pretty worthless.

If you're only seeing black screen after importing what you know to be functional video files into your system for editing or playback, the most common culprit is lack of processor capacity to handle the data rates used by the more complex compressions of these video files.

As a side note, as a general rule, the bundled software that comes with a camcorder is usually not even worth installing. Quite often, it is bundled as an afterthought, and/or made by a vendor that specializes in making cameras or camcorders, not software. Such software is often buggy and unstable. There are a number of notable and reputable editing applications for both Mac and PC that are either free or very low-cost, and capable of handling the codecs utilized by most of the popular brands of digital pocket camcorders.

Because most of these pocket camcorders are fairly new to the market, and they typically utilize newer HD codecs with advanced compression, your system and software will usually need to be relatively recent, using the latest updates, and with enough graphics processing capabilities to view and manipulate the HD footage generated by these devices.

The noted OS compatibility specifications for the software bundled with this device are pretty generalized, even going back to systems going back several years. Yes, perhaps the software will easily install and launch on such a system, but this is not necessarily an indication that said system will be capable of smoothly handling even the consumer-grade HD codecs used by these types of devices.

Wow, there was a time that the 'Sony' name was associated with only top quality products. That was a long time ago.

Plus, their Apple-esque control freak mindset, not including SD expansion on a product like this. Weak, just weak.

silkykitty wrote:Does anyone know if this camera can be attached to a tripod? I didn't see anything about that in the specs. Unless of course I'm overlooking it somewhere in the info.

as others have said it does, but i will say it does tend to strip very easily (i worked in a photo center that sold these and our stripped on the camera bar after only a few days)