V60S Action Camera Review.

nutsey

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V60S Action Camera Review
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Technical Specifications

  • SoC: Allwinner V3
  • Sensor: 8Mp 1/3.2” Sony IMX179s (1.4 μm pixel)
  • Lens: Wide-angle 170-degree FOV (diagonal)
  • Display: 2-inch LCD TFT screen, 320x240
  • Video resolutions and format: 4K@30 fps, 2.7K@30 fps, 1080P@60/30 fps, 720P@120/60/30 fps. MP4 file format.
  • Photo resolutions: 2M/5M/8M/12M/16M
  • Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB
  • Wireless features: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, RF remote control
  • Additional features: UVC webcam, 4x digital zoom
  • Storage: microSD up to 64GB
  • Battery: removable, 3.7v Li-ion 900mAh
  • Dimensions: 59.1 mm * 41.0 mm * 25.0 mm (31.3 mm with lens)
  • Weight: 60 g (44 g without battery)

Package and Accessories

The dimensions of the package are 265 mm * 162 mm * 62 mm (~2.7 L of volume), the weight is 563 g. The outer package cover contains detailed information about camera features and accessories.
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There are 3 stickers on the box. One of them has information about the front panel color and the wall charger type.
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The box is made of high-quality cardboard. It has a transparent plastic window which allows to see the camera inside the waterproof case and the remote control. The inner package part is a blister pack which holds the contents in place and protects it from any damage during transportation.
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The camera bundle has a good and practical selection of standard mounting elements and accessories. It contains a remote control and a wrist band for it. It also includes a 2A europlug wall charger and a plastic frame with two 1/4" tripod screws. So the camera can be mounted upside down. V60S camera comes with a pretty detailed user's manual in English and Chinese and a leaflet which covers the remote control basic features and functions.
04-bundle.jpg

Camera Design

The camera body is made of black plastic, the front panel is also black and has soft-touch coating. V60S camera is also available with silver front panel. The protective lens rim outer diameter is 20.6 mm, the lens protrudes forward making it necessary to keep in mind protection against scratches and dents. The camera design is very common for a modern action camera, its front panel has following markings on it: ‘4K’, ‘ULTRA HD’, ‘2.4G’ and ‘WiFi’. Camera feels solid and the materials applied do not raise any questions.
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Screen
V60S action camera uses the most popular among Allwinner V3-based products Sitronix ST7789v LCD driver. It works with 2-inch LCD display with mediocre viewing angles, colors become inverted only when you turn the camera to the right. Brightness is enough for shooting under different lighting conditions. The screen is not touch sensitive and is covered with glossy transparent protective film.
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Controls
The front panel has the power / mode button, it is also used for navigation through the menus. The shutter / ok button is located on the top. The left side has two buttons on it: up (short press - wifi, long press - digital zoom in) and down (short press - mute, long press - digital zoom out).
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Indicators
There are two LED indicators located on the back side of the camera. The red one lights up when the battery is charging, the blue one is permanently on when the camera is powered up. Another red LED is on the top, it starts blinking after switching on the WiFi connection.

Connectors
All connectors are located on the left side. Of these, there are microUSB and microHDMI sockets and a microSD card slot.
08-connectors.jpg
 
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Power

Removable battery compartment is located on the bottom of the case. Its detachable door is not very easy to handle, but it seats safely when closed. Battery dimensions are 33 x 30 x 11 mm, the weight is 16 g. Battery is compatible with the most common “SJ” form-factor. The battery capacity is marked as '900mAh', this will be checked below in the Teardown section of this review. The battery also has ‘BK-L’ marking which might represent the manufacturer name. Another thing to mention here is that V60S cam stays fully usable being connected to an external USB power source. You can record videos and shoot stills with this cam while charging. V60S has a dashcam mode, which powers up and starts recording when a power source is connected and stops recording and shuts the camera down when the power is off.

Fully charged battery gives about 1 hour of continuous shooting (4K30 mode, LCD on, WiFi off).
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Functions and Settings

Video modes

video-modes.jpg
Encoding profile: Main@L5.1
Audio: mono, AAC 8kHz 15kbps

User interface and Settings menu

The user interface is similar to many other Allwinner V3 based action cameras.
Boot and shutdown logos are same 'XDV' pictures.
on-logo.jpg

The OSD indicates current mode, resolution, card status and remaining space (in Gb), battery level, current date and time, audio recording and looped video icons. Short press of the front button sequentially switches between following working modes: Video (opens by default), Photo, Slow Motion, Playback and Settings.
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You can get access to camera settings after pressing the OK button in Settings mode. The settings are grouped into four sections: Video, Photo, General and System settings. You can switch between them with the front button. The fifth item (the one on the very right) switches the camera back to the shooting mode.
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Almost all menu items available are pretty obvious to use from their names and options, so I put some ♦ notes only for a few of them. There are some wrong named text entries, so I replaced things like 'Close' to 'Off' here.

Video settings
Video Resolution: see the table above.
Recording Sound: Off, On
Time-lapse: Off, 0.5s, 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s, 30s, 60s
Loop recording: Off, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes
♦ If set to 'Off' the video length will be limited by 15 minutes for all video modes.
Slow Motion: 1080P 60FPS, 720P 90FPS
Motion detection: Off, On
♦ Video recording auto start when a motion is detected.
FOV: Off, Wide, Middle, Narrow
♦ Field of view selection. See the table above for Horizontal FOV values for each mode. Note that ‘Off’ and ‘Wide’ have same HFOV.

Photo settings
Photo Resolution: 2M, 5M, 8M, 12M, 16M
♦ The sensor is 8 Megapixels so only 8M setting lets shooting stills without any interpolation.
Timed: Off, 3S, 5S, 10S, 20S
♦ This option sets shutter delay
Auto: Off, 3S, 10S, 15S, 20S, 30S
♦ This option sets photo timelapse interval
Photo Burst: Off, 3P/S, 5P/S, 10P/S

General settings
Exposure: -3 - +3 EV in increments of 1
White Balance: Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Incandescent Light, Fluorescent Light
WiFi: Off, On
Image Rotation: Off, On
Driving Mode: Off, On
♦ If enabled the camera will turn on automatically when the power source is connected and will switch off when it is removed. This option also sets ‘Loop Recording’ to ‘2 minutes’ and enables ‘Auto Shutdown’ feature.
Light Source Frequency: Auto, 50Hz, 60Hz
LED Indicator Light: Off, On
Auto Screensaver: Off, 10s, 30s, 60s
Auto Shutdown: Off, 1minute, 3minutes, 5minutes
Time Watermark: Off, On
♦ This option sets date stamp for both photo and video modes

System settings
Language: Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Russian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, Portuguese, Thai, Czech
Date-Time: date and time settings (Use Up/Down buttons to change value, Shutter to switch between input fields)
Format: prompts to format memory card
Reset To Factory Setting: prompts to reset camera settings to defaults
Firmware Version: shows camera model, current firmware version and date (no model displayed, RF 2017
/ 20170307)

WiFi connection

The camera switches into wireless access point with 'Sports DV' SSID and '12345678' password after the short press of the Up button. The strength of the Wi-Fi signal is very good, it allows remote controlling the camera with a smartphone from reasonably long distances.
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USB PC connection

A mode selection prompt appears after connecting the camera to a PC with a microUSB cable. There you can choose between USB Mode, PC Camera and Charging Mode. The first mode is used for file transfer. The camera in this mode is recognized by PC as a standard USB storage device.

Selecting the 'PC Camera' mode (use the wifi button to change selection and the shutter to confirm) enables web camera mode. Webcam is a standard UVC device with 720p30 (MJPEG) video mode.

The last ‘Charging Mode’ turns the camera on with or without battery in place.

Camera Teardown

You can find a step-by-step teardown photo guide made with Q6 camera HERE.

Mobile Apps, Firmware Updates and Other downloads

XDV Android App Google Play link
XDV Apple App iTunes link

Firmware updates can be found HERE.
 
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Video and Photo Quality and Samples

The bitrate value for 4K mode is 17 Mbit/s which is obviously too low for shooting without compression artifacts. The 1080p60 mode has 32 Mbit/s bitrate, other modes bitrates are limited by 21 Mbit/s. The 720p120 mode provides the most narrow horizontal field of view up to ~53 degrees which is really tight for an action camera, but can be used for shooting without the fisheye look. The lens is typical for a camera of this price, providing adequately sharp image for the whole image without any noticeable softness in the corners. Footages recorded in 60 and 120 fps modes do not show frame skipping under the lighting conditions bright enough, like a sunny day. V60S photo quality is not a strong point for this camera and the same is true for other Allwinner V3 based cams, however, stills produced are good enough for selfies or other similar nonessential use.

Raw (not processed) video samples: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4tyaJWIqCb_dnZlNGJ1NnRFbzQ?usp=sharing

Dashcam usage example of V60S camera:

Conclusion

Pros:
  • Field of view can be adjusted
  • RF remote control
  • Affordable price
  • 4K video resolution is 3840x2160
  • Solid build quality and good materials
  • Strong wi-fi signal strength
  • Rich bundle
  • Standard battery form-factor

Cons:
  • Video bitrate values could be higher for 4K and 2.7K modes
  • Low photo quality
  • Marking black soft-touch front panel

Where to Buy

Black EU plug
Black US plug
Silver EU plug
Silver US plug
 
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