The Coby Snapp Cam5001 is one of those products that offers an amazing idea with absolutely poor execution. The Snapp Cam is a line of portable, on-the-go HD cameras, similar to the Flip or other brands, but priced in the extremely affordable range of around $100. With that in mind, I don’t expect it to be like a $200 camera, because the age old adage, you get what you pay for, is usually true.
That being said, I am glad that I didn’t pay for this because I would have had to mourn the loss of my $100. I was in love with the idea of the Snapp Cam5001. On the surface, it’s an HD camera that shoots hours of video and can switch between video and still photography. You can also shoot even longer with an SD card. It sounds like the perfect solution for the casual camera user. Not only that, but it sounded like it could have been an excellent option for a blogger. Unfortunately, I learned that it wouldn’t be the perfect solution for this blogger.
The Postitives:
Coby wants to give people a chance to own electronics that they could not afford otherwise. In a day where iPods and iPads rule the roost, if you don’t have money you are going to be left out of the game. Coby tries to make sure that won’t happen. They offer a variety of electronics at prices that the average person can afford.
When it comes to being stylish the Coby Cam5001 hits all the right marks, too. This camera fits in the palm of your hand and it offers the sleek, sophistication that most people want from a camera like this. Similar to the Flip, it has the open latch/USB style that allows you to connect to your computer instantly. This means that you will be able to transfer your videos and pictures quickly and with ease.
The fact that the Coby allows you to switch between video and still pictures should put it at a step above many HD video cameras on the market. While many cameras now allow for video, most video cameras do not offer still shot photography. With the Coby, there is a button that allows you to switch between video and pictures. The side button allows you to actually switch between the picture gallery, taking pictures, watching videos, and shooting them.
The specs are quite impressive. The 2.0″ screen is large enough for you to get views of the shots that you want to get. The 4x digital zoom gives you a nice level of control over your shots and the built in memory of 128MB is fully expandable with SD card to 16 GB, which allows for hours of video and hundreds of photos.
If memory serves me correctly you get around 55 or so pictures without using an SD card and without video being shot. There is a prominent display of how many pictures you can take and how many you have taken. Charging is as easy as plugging it into your computer. There are some positives here, and it’s obvious that Coby meant to make a camera that would be worthy of using, but there are many negatives here that just cannot be ignored.
The Negatives:
Sadly, the Coby Snapp Cam5001 is never going to satisfy anyone above a casual camera user and it might not even satisfy them. There are a number of reasons why this is the case. First, there is an issue with the settings. While using the Coby Snapp Cam I made numerous notes about things that I did not like. The majority of the things were technical and could be considered deal breakers. They are all listed below. In a perfect world, these things could have been fixed with settings, but the camera has virtually none to speak of. The only settings you have are the ability to change the date and time and the ability to weaken your video and picture quality in order to hold more pictures (more on that in a minute). This is somewhat disappointing when there are so many things that a person might want to toggle. Sure, default settings are always good, but personalization is a key feature with most cameras and it’s completely missing here.
One of the most disappointing features is the picture quality. I find it funny that Coby allows you to lessen the picture quality in order to take more pictures when the top of the line picture quality is not that good to begin with. Unfortunately, most of the pictures taken with our Coby had to be deleted. While they looked fine on the screen, when transferred to the computer they were either too dark or too fuzzy to be usable. At first I thought that the issues were due to the pictures being taken indoors, but we took pictures indoors and outdoors and the results were the same.
With the pictures that were too dark, we attempted to lighten them as we have enough computer knowledge to know how to do so. Unfortunately, the pictures were so dark that lightening them did no good. This issue occurred with pictures that were taken inside and outside, so I doubt that lighting could have been the primary cause here.
In the event that pictures were light enough to salvage they ended up with the grainy consistency of a cell phone picture. The quality is never truly impressive. In fact, it always seems to fall short of basic expectations. While I don’t expect the Coby Snapp Cam to preform like a JVC, Flip, or Nikon, I do expect it to be worthy of a $100 or more camera. The quality here suggests otherwise.
I was most excited and then disappointed with the idea of the still photographs being available. I was excited because I was used to having to take screenshots from videos when using my Flip. So, I thought that it would be great to have this Coby as a stand-in when I wanted to do both video and pictures. However, the picture delay is so frustrating that it just isn’t worth it. There is at least a 3-4 second (possibly longer) delay from push to shot, which can change the scope of the picture completely from what you mean to take and actually end up with.
I have no doubt that Coby meant to create a product that would allow a larger market to experience the joy and ease of handheld cameras. However, while the thought was nice, the execution is horribly lacking. With that in mind, we sincerely hope that Coby gets it together and improves on this model, but until then we just cannot recommend purchase.
Technorati Tags: Coby Snapp Cam5001, Product Review, Electronics Review, Video Camera, Still Photography, Handheld Camera, Pictures, Video
Written by Ashtyn Evans – Visit Website
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Ashtyn is in her early 30s. She is a mother, writer, college student, and music lover. Ashtyn has had a successful career as a writer since 2003. She turned to blogging in 2005. Ashtyn attends Wright State where she is getting a degree in Psychology. She has extensive knowledge in SEO and Social Media Development.
