Polaroid XS100 Extreme Edition HD 1080p 16MP Waterproof Sports Action Video Camera

This 6 oz video camera is fun to use and produced pretty good video. I am attaching a video taken with the camera and 6 photos of the camera itself to illustrate my review.



I took Polaroid XS100 camera with me on a weekend trip and recorded video snippets through the entire day. I made about 2 hours of recording (on a single charge battery charge). The attached video contains four clips took during this trip in various lighting conditions.



✔ Driving in the car

Note when the sun hits the camera you can see a bit of a halo from the dome that covers the lens. The anti-vibration feature of the camera is very effective in the car.



✔ In bright day light

Excellent color and sharpness especially when the sun is behind



✔ Inside a store

Worked well in a small quarters and fairly dim lighting



✔ At night

Very good low-light performance. The anti-vibration feature of the camera is not effective for larger scale shakes which is the results of the bobbing camera during a walk.



The camera has 170 degree wide angle lens. I used Class 6 MicroSD card. F2.8 Fixed Focus Lens focused well and performed well in low light. My video was shot as 960p.



Video options are:

1080p: 1920x1080p / 30FPS / 16:9

960p: 1280X960P / 30FPS / 4:3

720p:1280x720 / 60FPS (Slow Motion) / 16:9

720p: 1280x720 / 30FPS/ 16:9



Photo options are:

Resolutions 16MP, 5MP, 3MP, VGA

Photo Mode: Single / Burst (x10) / Time Lapse (5,10,30,60)



The camera records two formats of files at once - full size and low-resolution "thumbnail" video, which is useful for sharing.

My full size video was generated in .mov format. I converted it to .mp4 for editing with my Linux-based video editing tools.





   

The first photo shows everything that comes in the package: the camera, the pouch, HDMI cable, and a large number of mounts and sticky pads.



The camera is water tight up to 30 feet. The lens is covered with a dome (see photo #5), the back has a water tight lock (see photo #4). Photo #3 shows the back of the camera with the cover off. The top slot is for micro sd card, below is HDMI port, below it the charging port, to the left the selection for video format, on the right the reset hole.



Note: I had trouble turning on the camera for the first time after charging, but pushing the reset button fixed the problem and the camera turned on.



The video camera is operated by two buttons on the top of the camera (see photo 4). The long button with dots control video recording. And the smaller button in front is used to turn on the video camera on and off (with a slight hold) or take still pictures (with a light press without any hold).



Photo #6 shows the bottom of the camera where various mounts attach. The mounting screw is plastic and one has to be careful not to strip it with a metal mount.



Photo#2 shows the camera on 1 inch gridded mat for size reference. The camera weights 6 oz. It is 4 inches long, and the lens portion is 1 3/8 inches in diameter. The pouch has a Velcro closing, and it is possible to put the camera into the pouch even when it is attached to a mount.



Other starting and setting, the only setting you can change directly from the camera is the format (HD or FHD). To change other settings you need to connect the camera to the PC (Mac or Windows) and use the Polaroid software. For example, if you wanted to set the camera to take pictures on a certain interval. This requires you to pre-plan what you will do on each trip unless you can take a laptop with you. I wish I could control more things directly from the camera, but that would probably have made the camera larger.



If you have Windows-based PC Polaroid.exe is automatically installed from the camera into the micro sd card when you connect PC for the computer for the first time. If ou have a Mac you need to down load the software by from the web site (note that web site name is polaroidaction-dot-com (not polaroid-dot-com). Because my primary operating system is Linux the software did not get installed automatically and I needed to download Windows executable from the web site. The file name you download from the website is called setting_win.exe (not polaroid.exe as the file that is automatically installed).



The camera comes with HDMI cable that allows you to view and manage the content of your MicroSD card on your TV. However, I found that for me it easier to remove the MicroSD card and place manage it from the computer.



Polaroid camera comes with gravity sensor G-Sensor, which auto rotates the image even if you mount to the camera upside down. It is not totally fool proof as one of my video was recorded side ways. I must have rotated it after I turn the camera on but did not realize it. But the rest of around 30 videos were perfectly oriented.



Audio recording worked, but recorded audio sounds fairly low compared to my other video camera.



I was provided a sample for a review be it positive or negative, and I tried to cover both the positives and negatives of my experience.



Overall, I thought it was a fun camera to use and I thought it produced pretty good results.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.





AshopZones review ★★★★★

Intocircuit Power Castle Series PC11200 11200mAh Heavy Duty 5V 2A/1A Dual USB Ports External Battery Pack Charger

I tested Intocircuit Power Castle Series PC11200 11200mAh Heavy Duty 5V 2A/1A Dual USB Ports External Battery Pack with Nexus 7 Tablet (JellyBean 4.2.2), Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (ICS 4.0.4), and Samsung Galaxy Nexus cell phone (JellyBean 4.2.2).



I own several external battery packs. To test their performance I run the same set on tests on each of them in order to provide unbiased results as the numbers speak for the performance of each unit.



To test Intocircuit power pack I ran my 10 minute test for each of my 3 devices on each of the 2 ports for a total of 6 tests. In addition I charged both Nexus phone and Nexus Tablet at the same time, one in each port. The results of these 7 tests are included in the tables below.



I am attaching a collage of 2 photos.



Photo #1 shows the power brick on the digital scale, its weight is 9.9 oz. The size of the power pack is 2.625" by 4.375" by 0.875".



Photo #2 shows the top of the unit which has an LED screen showing the level of charge. Next to the screen there is a small lack button which turns on the LED light. The light is pretty dim. Some other power bricks I have have a much brighter light, however this is not a key feature of the battery pack and the underpowered light did not effect my rating of this unit.



This power pack has two outlets, they are not labelled.



I use Battery App by Elvison to determine how each device recognized the charging source. 'AC' status means the charging is at full charging rate. 'USB' status indicates charging at a lower charging rate. 'Discharging' status means that the charging rate is below the power that the device is consuming so it slows down the discharge rate but does not re-charge.



My methodology is to charge each mobile device on each port of the unit for 10 minutes and measuring how much each unit was charge in that 10 minute period. Each line in the table below represents a separate 10 minute test.



The key findings:

(1) Both Nexus phone and Nexus 7 tablet (both running Jelly Bean 4.21) charged at AC rate on both ports.

(2) Samsung Galaxy 7.7 works, but shows different behaviors on the two ports



The table below summarizes my findings:



Nexus 7 Tablet

--------------

right port.......AC rate.....1% charge increase

left port........AC rate.....2% charge increase



Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone

--------------------------

right port.......AC rate.....5% charge increase (among the best rates in my tests)

left port........AC rate.....5% charge increase (among the best rates in my tests)



Nexus 7 Tablet and Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone at the same time

--------------------------------------------------------------

Tablet...........AC rate.....1% charge increase

Phone............AC rate.....5% charge increase (among the best rates in my tests)



Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7

--------------------------

right port.......AC rate..... 1% charge increase

left port........AC rate..... discharging if screen is on, 1% charge increase if screen is off



In addition to the tests above we used Nexus 7 Tablet to navigate during a several hour trip while plugged into Intocircuit Power Castle Series PC11200 11200mAh external battery (rather than the car charger). Nexus 7 remained charged at 100% at the end of the trip.



I received this battery pack from the manufacture for an honest review be it positive or negative. Running the same set of test on all my external batteries allows me to provide an unbiased review. By comparing the results of the tests for this battery to the other external batteries I tested, this power pack earned a 5 star rating.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.





AshopZones review ★★★★★

Bolse® 3.1 Amp Dual USB Port High Output Car Charger 15w

I tested Bolse 3.1 Amp Dual USB Car Charger with Nexus 7 Tablet (JellyBean 4.2.2), Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet (ICS 4.0.4), and Samsung Galaxy Nexus cell phone (JellyBean 4.2.2).



I own several car chargers and ran the same set on tests on each of them to provide unbiased results as the numbers speak for the performance of the unit.



To test Bolse car charger I ran my 10 minute test for each of my 3 devices on each of the 2 ports for a total of 6 tests. I repeated the same tests with a data cable and with a charging cable. The results of these 12 tests are included in the tables below.



I am attaching a collage of 4 photos labeled with numbers 1 through 4 under customer photos that I will be referencing in this review. You can locate this photo by following 'customer photos' link under the main photo.



Photo #1 shows the charger on a gridded mat next a pen for size reference. The car charger is 3.5" long. The charger's face is 1.25" by 1".



Photo #2 and #3 show how the charger fits into our two cars. It has a relatively log neck and fits very well in both car configurations. It goes in firmly, forms a good contact, and stays plugged in well even over rough roads. The charger has two outlets labelled 1.0 AMP and 2.1 AMP.



Photo #3 shows one of the tables during the testing. I use Battery App by Elvison to determine how each device recognized the charging source. 'AC' status means the charging is at full charging rate. 'USB' status indicates charging at a lower charging rate. 'Discharging' status means that the charging rate is below the power that the device is consuming so it slows down the discharge rate but does not re-charge.



My methodology is to charge each mobile device on each port of the unit for 10 minutes and measuring how much each unit was charge in that 10 minute period. Each line in the table below represents a separate 10 minute test



The key findings:

(1) Samsung Galaxy 7.7 cannot be charged with this car charger with either port

(2) Both Nexus phone and Nexus 7 tablet running Jelly Bean 4.21 charged at AC rate on both ports.



The table below summarizes my findings:



Nexus 7 Tablet

--------------

1 AMP port.......AC rate.....1% charge increase (data cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....1% charge increase (data cable)



1 AMP port.......AC rate.....1% charge increase (charging cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....2% charge increase (charging cable)



Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone

--------------------------

1 AMP port.......AC rate.....2% charge increase (data cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....3% charge increase (data cable)



1 AMP port.......AC rate.....4% charge increase (charging cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....3% charge increase (charging cable)



Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7

--------------------------

1 AMP port.......AC rate.....discharging (data cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....discharging (data cable)



1 AMP port.......AC rate.....discharging (charging cable)

2.1 AMP port.....AC rate.....discharging (charging cable)



I received this car charger from the manufacture for an honest review be it positive or negative. Running the same set of test on all the chargers I own allows me to provide an unbiased review. By comparing the results of the tests for chis charger to the other car chargers I tested, this car charger earned a 5 star rating. The only thing this charger did not do well is handle my Samsung tablet. However neither did other generic car chargers, Samsung tablet only works well with the car charger made by Samsung.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.





AshopZones review ★★★★★

Ideative SS1630A-03 Socket Sense 6-Outlet Expandable 1080 Joules Surge Protector

Before I purchased Ideative power strip I had three power strips sitting next to each other charging various batteries and gadgets, it was a mess! The reason I had so many strips is that many of my chargers take up more than one slot, so it took a lot of strips to house them all. I am attaching a photo collage of 2 photos that will illustrate how I use this strip to hold 2 AA battery chargers, one AAA charger, one camera charger, hand held vacuum charger and a two slot USB charger. The photo can be located by following 'customer photos' link under the main photo.



The first photo shows the empty strip: it has 6 outlets. The strip has 5 movable segments, which can be adjusted to fit your various devices. The 5 segments with outlets are 1.5" wide each and the width of the moving segment can be changed from 0" to 1.25". The plugs holes are oriented on an angle. Ideally another 0.25" of the inch between the segments would have made it possible to fit all my charges next to each other in any order, as it stands now finding the optimal configuration is a bit like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. This is a thick power strip, the raised part of the strip near the cord is 2.25" from the surface. The power cord on this charger is a fairly short, it is 34 inches.



The second photo shows how I plugged in my chargers. Luckily some of my chargers are not polarized, so I could orient them in different ways making the long USB charger hang over the edge where there was room.



Overall, I am very pleased with this strip. It is a space saver!





You can find this 3 foot cord on Amazon by following this link





You can find it on Amazon by following this link.





AshopZones review

Plugable 12 Outlet Power Surge Protector with Built-in Dual USB Charging Ports

Plugable 12 Outlet power surge protector provides 12 power outlets and 2 USB ports. 4 of the AC outlets are set away from the others so I could plug in my battery rechargers without covering any other outlets. The power strips measures 12" x 6" x 1", has a 6 foot cord. It claims 4320 Joules of surge protection for all 12 power outlets. The switch on the side of the power strip servers the role of power switch as well as the circuit breaker switch.

  I am attaching a collage of 2 photos : Photo #1 shows a variety of battery chargers, USB chargers, and a regular size small plug in this power strip. I found the outlets well spaced out to fit my needs. Photo #2 shows one minor annoyance I found in this strip. Both sides of the strip glow with green LED lights that cannot be turned on. It seems fashionable for every device to glow in the dark, I wish this was an optional light with a way to turn it off.



To test the USB ports I ran the test I use to test all chargers and power banks. The benefit of running the same test on all devices is that it allows me to compare them to each other in "apples to apples" comparison. My methodology is to charge each mobile device on each port of the unit for 10 minutes and measuring how much each unit was charge in that 10 minute period. Each line in the table below represents a separate 10 minute test.



I use Battery App by Elvison to determine how each device recognized the charging source. 'AC' status means the charging is at full charging rate. 'USB' status indicates charging at a lower charging rate. 'Discharging' status means that the charging rate is below the power that the device is consuming so it slows down the discharge rate but does not re-charge.



iPad Mini

_________



Port 1................ 2%.....AC

Port 2................ 2%.....AC



Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet

_________________________



Port 1................ 0%.....discharging with data cable

Port 1................ 2%.....AC with charging cable

Port 2................ 0%.....discharging with data cable

Port 2................ 2%.....AC with charging cable



iPad Mini and Samsung Galaxy 7.7 Tablet at the same time

_________________________________________________________

Port 1................ 2%.....AC (iPad Mini)

Port 2................ 3%.....AC with charging cable (Galaxy tab)

Port 1................ 2%.....AC with charging cable (Galaxy tab)

Port 2................ 2%.....AC (iPad Mini)



These charging rates fall in the middle range of my tests, not as good as the fastest chargers but not the slowest. Given that it a bonus functionality on the well spaced power strip I am satisfied with this performance.



Plugable products offers a one year limited warranty against any defects in materials or workmanship. The warranty information can be located on Plugable web site by selecting "Support/Warranty" from the top menu of their website (and the website name is the product name followed by dot com). They state that they will repair or replace products which fail because of any defect in the first year after purchase.



Plugable provided this unit to me for testing, evaluation and review be it positive or negative. I am very pleased with the layout of the outlets. The USB ports provided reasonable speed of charging even though they were not as fast as the best rapid chargers I own. Overall, I recommend it.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★

Bolse® 5Gbps SuperSpeed 7-Port USB 3.0 HUB

The Bolse USB hub is 4.25" x 1.75" x 1". It has 7 USB slots are located on three sides of the unit. The back panel take the power code and USB plug that plugs into your computer. The top contains a light for each USB slots, and lights up when something is plugged in. The USB cord is 39". Its power cord cord is 47" long. The USB unit weights 5.7 oz, the power plug and cord weigh 4.5 oz.



The documentation states that this hub USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0. I tested with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1, and it is backwards compatible with both.



I tested he hub on Windows XP, Windows 7, and Linux. Each operating system I tested saw the memory stick plugged into the hub without problems.



I tested each port by copying a large set of mp3 files totalling 638916 Megabytes. I measured CPU time and clock time. I wanted to test that all ports worked, I wanted to test if there was a significant difference in performance between ports, and I wanted to see if copying to multiple memory sticks at the same time would slow down the copying.



✔ First, I tested each port using 2.0 USB memory stick. I ran the same test on each of the 7 ports. All ports worked with a normal small variations in performances.



✔ Second, I tested copying files onto two 2.0 USB memory sticks at the same time, to see of the copying slows down compared to working with one stick at a time. The performance was somewhat slower compared to test 1.



✔ Third, For comparison I plugged the same memory stick directly into the computer without the USB hub.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEST#1 (one USB 2.0 stick)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are clock times:

-------------------------------

Port1:_______1:23.65

Port2:_______1:55.40

Port3:_______1:15.83

Port4:_______1:16.92

Port5:_______1:24.54

Port6:_______1:55.10

Port7:_______1:50.21



Here are the CPU times:

-------------------------------

Port1:_______0.791s

Port2:_______0.887s

Port3:_______0.543s

Port4:_______0.696s

Port5:_______1.003s

Port6:_______0.880s

Port7:_______0.851s



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEST#2 (two USB 2.0 sticks at the same time)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clock times for two devices at the same time:

-------------------------------

Memory stick #1: 2:01.58

Memory stick #2: 2:27.68



CPU times for two devices at the same time:

-------------------------------

Memory stick #1: 0.954s

Memory stick #2: 1.234s



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEST#3 (one USB 2.0 stick plugged directly into the computer)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CPU time: 0.851s

Clock time: 1:54.24



I am attaching a collage of 3 photos of this unit. They can be located by following 'customer photos' link under the main photo. The first photo shows the USB unit, and its two cords. The second photo shows the back of the unit. The third photo shows the unit while I was doing one of the test. This photo gives you a good idea of the relative size of this unit. You can also see the lights on the top of the unit: the left most light indicates that the unit is plugged in and the the second light shows that port 5 contains a device.



I was provided a sample for evaluation and I ran it through 16 tests in order to provide unbiased and honest review. The unit performed well and met my expectations for a 5 star rating.





You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★

Pyle PFA400U 100-Watt Class-T Hi-Fi Audio Amplifier with USB SD Reader and AC Adapter

This is a very compact (7" x 4" x 1.75") digital amplifier that produced good sound when used with small (12") high quality speakers. I am attaching a video which demonstrates Pyle PFA400U amplifier in action. The music source in the video is the Logitech bluetooth adapter connected to Nexus 7 Tablet.

Overall, the amplifier did a nice job. This amplifier is a Class T switching digital amplifier rated at 100W. However, 100W ratings is some what misleading, it refers to instantaneous burst of 100W. The power adapter of the amplifier is rated at 24W, the efficiency of Class T amplifier is 80%, this means the continuous power of this unit is approximately 20W. When both the tablet and the amplifier were both turned to their maximum volume, the sound was loud but did not blast. In the video I used the remote control to turn on the audio to its maximum volume.



If you want to turn on or turn off the amplifier you can do it either from the remote control, or by a long push on the "mode" button on the unit itself (left most button). You can also turn off the amplifier by twisting the volume button. Note that the remote control overrides the volume set by the knob (i.e. if you turned down the sound using the remote, using the knob will not make it loud).



The remote control is small (7" x 4" x 1.33"), and can be used for on/off, controlling volume and changing tracks.



USB/SD inputs worked without problems but what is being played is not shown on the little digital display on the unit. The remote control can be used to change the tracks forward and backwards, but there is no fast forward or reverse, and I was not able to change the display to show the tracks numbers or titles. The play from the USB/SD does NOT resume where you left off (it starts from the beginning) if you turn off the unit or if you hit mode button to switch between RCA and USB/SD inputs.



Setting up the unit was simple, and I did not need the instructions. However, it should be noted that the documentation that comes with this unit is poor. The description specifies that this unit has 3.5mm (1/8") front input. Neither the front nor the back have 3.5mm input. The documentation refers to RCA connections on the back as outputs rather than inputs (the unit itself is labelled correctly). It does not mention that "Mode" button or "Volume" button can be used to turn the unit on and off.



I am enclosing a collage of 3 of photos which show the unit. Photo #1 and Photo #2 show different angles of the back of the unit. Photo #3 shows the front of the unit.



I received this amplifier for an honest review (be it positive or negative) from the manufacture. I described both positives and negatives of this unit, and I hope the video gives a good idea of what to expect from this amp.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★