Review: Toshiba Camileo S30

The Bieber-esque popularity of the Flip video camera over the last few years has sparked a proliferation of cheap, handheld camcorders.

However, the news last week that Cisco is killing off the seminal Flip has thrown the whole deck of cards into the air. Many are asking if there's a need for a single-use device that just shoots video and captures photos, now that our smartphones have video capability and also do much, much more. Others argue that since smartphones are a minority in the mobile market, over a billion potential customers still exist for such a device.

Is this the end of the product category entirely, or was this a colossal mistake on Cisco's part that left a vacuum others can now easily step into?

Several companies are eager to find out.

So, here's Toshiba throwing its hat into the ring with the $180 Camileo S30. With cool features such as the ability to shoot slow motion, time-lapse, and motion-activated video, the S30 looks like a strong contender. Unfortunately, its perks fail to include an aptitude for shooting high-quality HD video or camera stills.

Granted, if you want to make a low-budget Koyaanisqatsi, analyze your Capoeira moves in slo-mo, or catch your neighbor letting his dog crap on your lawn – or hell, all three – this could be the camcorder for you. But the fact remains that when compared to its competitors, be they smartphones or the dearly departed Flip, the S30 doesn't measure up.

On the surface, this camera looks like a great deal. It has a pistol form factor and a relatively large, 3-inch flip-out touchscreen.

It also comes with a sack of goodies, including a nerdy belt holster, mini-tripod, strap and cleaning cloth. Aside from the small and boxy power adapter, the box also includes a USB cable (standard), an HDMI cable and even an older AV cable for showing videos on your mom's old CRT (we know because we watched The Notebook with her last night. Zing!).

The unit's lithium-ion battery is removable, unlike the Flip's closed-box system. The camera also uses SD cards, which is great unless you're so cheap that you can't cough up a couple of fins for a 4-GB card. So far so good, right?

It gets even better. The Camileo also includes some undeniably cool, if gimmicky, features. Flip fans will gnash their teeth in lamentation when they see the time-lapse videos of a sunset or of freeway traffic you can make with your Toshiba. If you have the presence of mind and timing to set it up, you can also make neat slow-motion videos – though for reasons that are difficult to explain here¹, you'll have to do it from afar.

The motion-detect video is great for making sure your mom isn't snooping in your room, or for catching your garden variety vandals, hoods, loiterers, or unseemly roustabouts who are up to no good outside your window – but please spy responsibly.

The Toshiba also has some hardware advantages over Flips and smartphones. The camera has a zoom function (digital only) and a Pause button. It can switch between 1080p video and 8-megapixel still shots. Its flip-out screen can swivel back and forth to capture both third-person videos and first-person YouTube rants, American Idol auditions, or homemade video fatwahs.

Use the LED lamp to illuminate your last words in a ghost-hunting expedition gone wrong. And you can change all sorts of settings in the video and photo options (whereas the Flip has almost no options).

But that's where the good stuff ends. Toshiba's camera is hampered by clumsy controls and smudgy picture quality.

First the controls: The touchscreen functions are somewhat "hard of feeling." They are only reluctantly responsive, and you often find yourself repeating an unheeded command. When you try to play a video on a TV, the controls stay onscreen and cover up a good portion of the top and bottom of the picture.

And then there's the video.

When the simplest of cameras advertise HD video and 8-megapixel stills, you have to take it with a grain of salt. Limitations of a budget CMOS and compression algorithms obviate counting your subjects' nose hairs or pores. But our test videos and stills showed that, even for a budget cam, the Toshiba showed flaws.

The Camileo had some obvious difficulty with video in bright sunlight; the camera was prone to blowouts, especially on white guys' pates or ironic tees. Out of direct light, the picture was slightly muddy and lacked sharpness, even with little or no movement.

Movement was also the bane of the still shots. Still lifes were reasonably crisp, but any movement from turtle-speed on up became a blur. On the plus side, the sound was fine, so if you're filming for radio, you're all set.

The Camileo had some obvious difficulty with video in bright sunlight. Notice the image distortion and artifacts. The camera was also prone to blowouts.

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For comparison, I held a Flip HD right next to the Toshiba Camileo and shot the same scene with both cameras at the same time.

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We're not saying the camera is worthless. Its cool set of special effects would make it a great gift for a child who aspires to make films, skateboarders seeking to capture face plants in slow-motion, or someone who wants to cruelly document how many people slip on the same ice patch outside his flat.

But it is impossible to get past the iffy video and still-picture quality. If it could shoot good video, it would be a must-buy. Without it, the Camileo S30 is merely a toy.

WIRED Low price and a lot of included swag. Cool functions, including slow-motion, time-lapse and motion-detect are unheard of in a budget camera. Several hardware perks, such as HDMI-out, a flip-out display, removable battery, zoom controls, LED light and a macro switch.

TIRED Touchscreen controls are wonky. Super sensitivity to light made for unwelcome lens flares and overexposed shots. HD video often appeared somewhat smudgy and less-than-crisp. Oversensitivity to movement made all but the stillest still pictures unusable.

¹ In order to get a decent-looking slow-motion video, the camera digitally zooms into a small portion of the CMOS sensor and records a burst of shots at a high frame rate (see, that would have looked awkward in the middle of that paragraph, right?).

Photos and video by Roger Hibbert/Wired

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