Sandberg ActionCam

[testman78]

Introduction

So we've almost past the second quarter pole of 2017 where it has all become abundantly clear that this new age of posting literally everything we do daily to the internet isn't going anywhere. So, one must ask themselves how can I up the ante? It's rather hard to surf, ride a bike, or run through the woods with a selfie-stick and not put an eye out, or take a dirt nap. Plus not everyone has $300.00-$400.00 to buy a GoPro (trust me I don't either). So without further delay let me introduce you to the formidable Sandberg 4k Action Camera.



The Sandberg 4k Action Camera gives you the option of shooting in 1080P 30fps, 1080p 60 fps, and 4K 30fps. All of which you can change from the camera with ease. You can view the video being taken from the 2-inch LCD screen.




Packaging & Contents

The box is made of cardboard.The box dont follow the typical Sandberg colour scheme that we've seen over the last couple years.We can have a clear view of the ActionCam.



At the rear of the box we see a description of the product printed in many languages right above the contents and specifications lists.



Some highlights.




Inside you will find a clear plastic tray insert containing the camera and a large assortment of accessories as well as a manual.The actual instructions are basic.Very little useful information is provided for those not familiar with camera settings such as ISO, Exposure and HDR. Those with even basic knowledge of digital cameras or dash cam menu settings, however should find they are well versed enough to get by.



Bicycle stand (bike handlebar mount): This is a black plastic mount that has a gap in the centre, two quick release bolts on the edges and a universal female GoPro style mount located on the top edge orientated left to right.The gap in the centre of the mount where you attach the mount to handlebars, to attach the mount simply loosen one of the bolts and remove the other. Then place the mount on the handlebars attaching the removed bolt and tightening both evenly until the mount is secured on your handlebars.The gap for the handlebars can be set between 16mm and 22mm, and the jaws that clamp onto your handlebars are padded with a very loose fitting piece of silicone padding (this silicone padding isn?t actually attached to the mount so take not to lose it when removing the mount from your bike). For those that find the 22mm maximum adjustment is insufficient longer bolts are easily sourced on the web.It should be noted that this mount is also suitable for pretty much anything that is round measuring between 16mm and 22mm in diameter such as walking sticks, ski poles, wheelchairs, mobility scooters and of course other frame parts on your bike (to have the camera rear facing for example).



Fixed base & Adapter: The underside of the Fixed base is round and flat with a 1/4″ brass thread on the underside and on the top there is a female universal GoPro mount (without a quick release bolt). This can be used as a basic tripod mount or with the aid of some of the 3M tape as a very basic dash mount.The Adaptor also has a round, flat base, but this time with a protruding 1/4″ thread and at the top there is a male universal GoPro mount. Also attached to the thread on the underside is a plastic locking dial that is used to provide a secure, flush fit to whatever the adaptor is attached to (screw the adaptor on clockwise and then turn the locking dial anticlockwise to tighten both components together).The Fixed base and Adaptor can be used in conjunction with each other to provide an adaptor that orientates the camera in any direction you wish. Simply screw the Adaptor on to the Fixed base until the thread is fully secure, then loosen the Adaptor so that the camera is facing the desired direction, then hold the adaptor in place and turn the locking dial anticlockwise to secure the Fixed base and Adaptor together whilst retaining the desired angle.



Switch support 1: This is a short straight (does not change the orientation of the camera when used) male to female universal go pro adapter with a quick release bolt on the female mount. There?s no point in measuring this as its the shortest possible adaptor that can be made going from one adaptor to the other with no extension.This can be used to make the camera stand slightly proud and offer an improved degree of articulation and it can be used with other components to make a right angle mount as well.
Switch support 2: This is the same as "Switch support 1" except that the male and female connection face opposite directions (a right angle adapter). Again, this has no additional length and is just an adaptor without extension, useful for altering the facing of the camera.
Switch support 3: This is the same as "Switch support 2" except that it is longer offering a slight extension as well measuring 50mm long in comparison to the 35mm overall length of support 2.



Helmet base:There are two helmet mounts provided that are very near identical with the sole exception that one has a 1/4″ brass tripod mount in the centre and the other does not. Both have strap mounting points on the edges, use clip attachments such as Base 1 or Base 2 to attach the camera and both have pre attached 3M double sided sticky pads on the underside.To attach these mounts to your helmet ensure to use both the provided straps and the sticky pads as well and use of the steel wire is also highly advised. Along with the strap these mounts can also be used for any and all manor of other mounting solutions such as on the bicep, wrist or indeed anything else of a suitable size.





Bandage: The accessories listed within the manual as the "Bandage" are in fact 4 canvas straps. The first two straps are 21.4cm long, 1.15cm wide lengths of canvas with a 15.5cm long patch of "hook" Velcro and on the other side at the opposite end is a 5.2cm long patch of "loop" Velcro.The other two straps measure 36cm long and 2.5cm wide and are made from plain nylon canvas. On one end of each of these straps is an overlock buckle and the other is plain and without feature. These straps can be used individually or secured together to for a greater length.The straps can be used in conjunction with the helmet base mounts to secure the camera to pretty much anything that you can find that will fit. (Although such implied uses are found mounting the camera on your arm or wrist).



Ribbon:These are actually four 19.8cm long 3mm wide, non reusable nylon cable ties.
Wire rope:This is a 16cm long, 1mm diameter high tensile steel wire with a 15mm x 4.5mm long loop on each end. This wire can link your camera to its mount providing an additional layer of security.
Wiper: This is a fairly run of the mill 13.5cm x 13.5cm glasses cleaning cloth with a serrated edge. I?m not sure I would want to clean a camera lens with such a cloth but it should keep the waterproof case clear of smudges and streaks.




The EU charger is a model: 008-A<IC> charger 5v 1A and it is incredibly light (almost as though nothing were in it at all) weighing just 28g and measuring 59mm high, 24.5mm wide and protruding form the socket by 52.5mm.



Data wire: This is a USB A to 5 pin micro B cable, this is used to change the camera battery (while installed in the camera) and can also be used to transfer data from an installed MicroSD card to a PC and it also enables the use of the camera as a webcam as well.



3M Adhesive tape: There are two spare double sided 3M sticky pads that are exact replacements for those found on the helmet base mounts.



Also included in the package is a complete replacement rear cover for the waterproof case. I will confess I had hoped for at least one replacement seal for the case as from personal experience I am fully aware that such seals do not last forever. An entire replacement front cover however is a pleasant surprise.



Waterproof case:This comes supplied with the camera installed and I will cover this more in depth later on.



Clip: This description is actually a little misleading, this accessory includes two parts. The first us a small black plastic retainer can hold the bare camera (without the waterproof case). On the top and bottom of this there are 1/4″ brass mounting threads and on the rear is a mount of the second part of the "clip" which is actually a spring clip.The clip without the retainer clip attached on the rear can be used in conjunction with other accessories (that are not included) such as a tripod or car mount allowing the camera to be used as a dash cam. When the clip attached to the second clip it allows you to mount the camera on a belt, open edge pocket or indeed anything else up to 9mm thick.




A Closer Look

The camera measures 59mm wide, 41.5mm high and the body measures 25mm deep or 25.5mm if you include the power button and including the lens the total measurement is 30mm. The camera on its own weighs 58g including the battery, but not a MicroSD card (not that one would add much).The camera inside the waterproof case measures at its greatest points 78mm wide, 77mm high and 44.5mm deep. The camera, case and battery (again, no MicroSD card) weighs 134g. (These measurements do not include any mounting accessories, just the bare case).The front of the camera is plastic.It is in fact made from black plastic with a vinyl transfer stuck to it (including the power button).The edges of the camera, however are made from (or covered with) a very firm rubberized silicone sporting a check / diamond pattern that should prove very durable and even offer some protection to the camera as well. As for the rear the camera well that is entirely covered by a thin piece of clear plastic.On the front to the right, you will find a 16mm diameter wide angle lens and to the right a 10mm diameter power / mode button (information on the controls follows shortly).



On the top to the right is the 10mm diameter OK button with a small amber recording indicator light just to the left.



On the left side of the camera you will find an exposed MicroSD card slot, USB Micro B sync & charge port a mini HDMI out port and the microphone (which is pretty impressive).



On the right side you will find a small narrow up and down arrow button and an equally small speaker (which is very quiet).



On the underside there is a small switch (that you might easily miss) that releases the battery compartment cover. When this switch is held to the left, the left edge of the battery compartment can be pried away from the camera, but you will need finger nails of some length to do so.



On the back of the camera you will find the 2″ colour LCD screen located centrally towards the top edge. This has a black glossy surround that covers the remainder of the rear of the camera and as previously noted, this has a clear plastic cover finishing it off along with another two indicator LEDs in the bottom left corner.




Peformance

CONTROLS:
Power button: Hold this for about 2 seconds to turn the camera on or off. When the camera is on tapping this button (careful not to hold it down) cycles through the four available modes.When first switched on the camera is by default in video recording mode. Tapping the power button once takes you to the picture (photograph) taking mode, a second tap takes you to the image / video browser one more tap takes you to the settings menu and a final tap returns you to video camera mode.It should be noted that when tapping the power button to change modes, there is an instant audio beep to confirm the mode change, but the actual mode change takes a second or two. Unfortunately, this button is not always responsive and it clearly needs pressing a certain way (firmly in the centre) for a press to be recognised. My only advice is, if there no beep rather than waiting to see what happens just press the button again.
OK button: In video recorder mode, tapping the OK button starts recording video and tapping it once more stops recording. In picture taking mode, pressing the OK button takes a picture. In the image, video browser mode, pressing the OK button will play any selected pre recorded file, when viewing pictures however it does nothing. In the setting menu the OK button is used to select and confirm.
Up and Down buttons: When in video or picture taking modes these buttons zoom in and out (the camera has 4x digital zoom and no optical zoom). It should be noted that these buttons are rather clicky and when the buttons are used while recording video the camera acts like a drum amplifying the noise made quite significantly. When in the settings menu they are used for navigation.
WIFI:
Sandberg ActionCam has built-in WI-FI. In the past, cameras with it were really expensive. In the recent years,WIFI modules became cheaper and smaller, allowing small companies to use them too. You can connect your Sandberg ActionCam sports camera to smartphones and tablets in seconds.Download and install the XDV app from your Android/Apple store.The controlling range is 10-15 meters (really depends if there are walls or barriers) which is not too bad. Many people who do ?pranks? and upload them to YouTube use the WIFI function to record and view the live stream. There are many free action camera WIFI apps out there. Most of them are free, but it is important to find one that will work properly with your action camera.




The battery within the camera is a 3.7v Li-ion 900mAh 3.3Wh battery bearing no make or model number. The dimensions of the battery are 28.89mm wide, 32.94mm long and 10.95mm deep.To test how much footage the camera can record in one session the battery was fully charged, a MicroSD card was installed and then the camera was set to record and left untouched. Eventually the camera ran out of juice and switched itself off. During this time the camera hard recorded 1 hour, 48 minutes and 35 seconds of video using the following settings?
Resolution: 1080FHD 1920x1080@60FPS, HDR: Off, Audio: On, Date stamp: On, Quality: Normal, Sharpness: Normal, White Balance: Auto, ISO: Auto, Exposure: 0/0, Face detection: Off, Anti shaking: Off, Car mode: On, OSD mode: On.Curiously, even though the camera has stopped recording and had shut down indicating a flat battery, I was able to switch the camera back on again and start recording again for about 2 minutes before the camera again shut down. It was then powered back up again and it even managed to record yet another 2 minutes of footage.Even now as I try to kill the battery to run some timed charge and capacity tests I am struggling to kill the battery. I have so far managed to switch the camera back on at least another 30 times with the camera booting past the splash screen and then shutting down after about 2 seconds.I find this a little strange as when the camera initially starts to record the 1.5″ display is active and by default it remains active for 60 seconds (this can be changed) before powering the display down. So during this first recording session when the battery at first appeared to die it was using far less power than when it was switched back on and powered the LCD back up?. so why did it switch off when it still had that much juice left?The fact I was able to switch the camera back on twice and record a further 4 minutes of footage and power the LCD back up again (not to mention the countless subsequent boot ups as well) would imply that the camera during the first recording session could have managed easily another 5 to 10 minutes of recording with the LCD display unpowered.
Charge testing
The following charge testing was conducted using a laptop USB 2.0 port with readings taken from a Drok USB multimeter.
Initial readings were 4.94v, 1.724w, 0.37A
9 minutes = 54mAh charged.
29 minutes = 178mAh charged.
46 minutes = 288mAh charged.
54 minutes = 336mAh charged.
1 hour and 3 minutes = 393mAh charged.
1 hour and 10 minutes = 435mAh charged.
1 hour and 26 minutes = 533mAh charged.
1 hour and 51 minutes = 690mAh charged.
2 hour and 9 minutes = 757mAh charged.
2 hour and 38 minutes = 793mAh charged.
Now there are some points to be made. Firstly the battery wasn?t truly dead before the charge test was started. Before doing a charge test the camera was fully charged and set to record and then left alone until the battery died (or at least I thought it had).As previously noted I had tried to drain the battery before starting the test, however after the 50th odd time switching the camera on I simply gave up trying to fully drain the battery, it just didn?t want to seem to give up. As you will see from the test I only managed to charge the battery by 793mAh, 103mAh less than the claimed size of the battery. Despite this it still managed to record more footage than claimed and it also took 22 minutes less than stated to fully charge.One final note to make in this section is that whenever the camera is attached to a power source (put on charge) regardless of the source (PC USB, power bank, main charger etc) the camera always switches itself on as soon as it starts to receive a charge. Which is very annoying.
The first thing I did (and the first thing you should do before using the camera underwater and each subsequent time before you intend to use it under water) was to test the seal. To do this I removed the camera from the case stuffed it with tissues and weighed into down in a bucket for about 15 minutes.The seal on the case won?t last forever and it will eventually need to be replaced, especially if used regularly in strong direct sunlight. So by testing it before each time you plan to use it underwater you will improve the chances of finding fault before it has a chance to damage your camera. (This sort of stuff should be in the manual, but sadly it isn?t).I am glad to say with this somewhat limited test (the only thing I can do short of a 60 mile round trip to the sea as I suspect trying to sneak the camera along to my local pool would result in porridge for breakfast) all was good and the paper towels were dry upon being removed.The locking mechanism on the case for those that are unfamiliar will prove frustrating at first and I will confess to taking a moment myself before realising how it functions. Look at the top of the case and there is a small switch that has to be pulled with your fingernail to the right. While holding this to the right, you then have to lift the front edge of the flap up. This can be quite tricky to do standing up and is much easier sat down where you can push the case into your lap.The buttons on the case are metal sprung loaded plungers that activate the buttons on the camera inside when then are pushed. Initially while I found the buttons that operated the navigation and ok buttons worked fine, but the power button occasionally did not detect being pressed. This has since been narrowed down to the actual button rather than the case.Sadly, I am unable to confirm whether the case that is supplied with this camera would fit a GoPro or visa versa, I have however included, dimensions that I hope will allow you to figure this one out for yourself. Overall the quality of the case is good, although you will want to keep that glasses cleaning cloth handy.



Audio Quality:
Audio from this camera is probably what surprised me the most. It?s actually? good? I can hear myself talking pretty clearly even with the waterproof case on. With the case off, audio is louder and clearer and not distorted.
Video Quality:
The video samples I am showing are in 1080p 60FPS mode, and as I said it is actually alright. The camera has decent colour tones and exposure. It tends to be a little too contrasty which makes bright highlights too bright and dark shadows too dark.As long as you?re in 1080p 60FPS here it?s not too bad, but this cameras is really a daytime only shooter.Overall, the picture quality is good, but it?s better that you use it as a 1080p video recording camera and not as a 4K camera. How come, you may ask? Well, the 4K video does look nice and crisp, but the camera can only shoot at maximum 30 fps. This results in the video looking a bit choppy. On the other hand, when you record in 1080p, the camera can record footage at 60 fps and the quality is also really good. Therefore, the only thing you need to decide on is whether you really need to shoot in 4K and whether the current 4K performance the Sandberg ActionCam is capable of is sufficient enough for you. If 4K video recording is not that important for you, then shooting in FHD should give you excellent results.Slow motion at 720p 120 FPS was great.
1080p 60FPS:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fty82umdysstav2/hljl.MP4?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8qcrlavez0...30003.MP4?dl=0

Photos also were Great as you can see.






Final Thoughts

Whether you?re a surfer, a hiker, a biker or someone that just loves to go on crazy adventures and get many adrenaline rushes, the Sandberg ActionCam is one of the best budget action cameras you can currently get. For one, it can shoot decent 4K content at 30 fps, but if you really want to go for the best and smoothest picture quality, recording in 1080p at 60 frames per second is highly recommended. Secondly, the camera is also waterproof and can be easily used at depths of up to ninety eight feet.



Overall, the Sandberg ActionCam is definitely a camera that I would recommend without hesitation. With everything that is included for the price(USD 118.99) it is amazing value for money, has great build quality and is an excellent alternative to the more expensive devices of a similar nature.When you consider the fact that just a few years ago you had to pay a few hundred dollars for this kind of performance, it?s easy to realize just how powerful and truly amazing this camera is.