00410In design, it is gorgeous. It has a very fresh and funky look, modern and solid. There is a slight glitter to the body which I thought added a fun flair to the camera without being girly. (I have a white one. I hope the sparkle is on all of the colours, which by the way – there are lots to choose from, all bright and cheerful.)

Minimalist in terms of buttons you will only find a play button, menu button, joystick four-way toggle, record buttons (one for video one for still), zoom slider and on/off button.

Charging and uploading is all done via a built in USB point. You can plug the Bloggie right into your computers USB without the need for any additional and annoying cables, although I did find that each time I plugged it in it was a bit of a pain to stop the USB point from sliding back into the body where it is neatly hidden while not in use.

Battery Life:
I have no complaints. Between a trip to Ceres to see the snow, numerous random videos around the house, fathers day where my family all had a go with it & few games of pool at a pool lounge with some friends I didn’t get any battery warnings.
I did have it plugged in and out of the USB randomly though and I know it charges whenever you plug it in – so maybe those few minutes at a time are enough to keep it strong.

Handling:
The buttons are all solid and don’t threaten to pop off at any point. The on/off button is flush with the body so you can’t press it by accident while in your pocket.

The camera head rotates all the way around so you can record more than 180 degrees from the person standing in front of you to yourself – all the while watching your video on the screen in front of you. The rotating head also acts as an on/off option (off being closed) and it clicks strongly away so also doesn’t threaten to pop itself out while in your pocket.

Menu:
The menu was easy to navigate (even if it did take me a few moments to understand which button did what). The menu lets you do five things
1) pick your video quality 2) pick your image quality 3) turn image stabilizer on or off 4) face detection on or off and 5) open your shooting settings.

When it came to picking my image and video quality; honestly – they have too many options. The whole idea behind the Bloggie was so that you always have your Bloggie with you and you never miss a picture or video that you might want to share online with your friends. So why have 5 image size options and 4 video quality options? I think they would have done better with “high quality” and “internet optimized quality” and skip out all the nonsense in between. This would take away a degree of confusion for any beginner & also takes away wasted time trying to decide which option is better to use.

Your settings menu is also basic. Allowing you to set the time / date / background colour and light brightness etc

Recording:
The photo quality was pretty good for a pocket device. Even when I was taking pics from a moving car they weren’t blurred.
Noise is an obvious issue that all camera manufacturers battle with and you can’t expect low light photography to be the bomb on this little Bloggie.

Video quality wasn’t great even on the highest setting. When I say not great – it would be fine for sharing clips of your friends doing silly things on holiday or a day trip adventure – but is certainly not aiming for video enthusiast quality.
Sometimes the video would pixilate if movement was too fast (even movement that I wouldn’t have considered fast).
Indoor video is obviously what this device was made for as the image is a lot clearer inside than outside.

The audio recorded inside blew my socks off – it was brilliant. Very clear and loud! Which obviously means that the microphone is sensitive – and that makes outdoor recording a little bit trickier as the wind (and wind created by movement of the person recording) makes a constant background noise. Voices and music are still heard above the noise of the wind though even if they are slightly drowned down.

Zoom – in a nut shell – don’t bother. You are going to get much better quality just walking closer or further from your subject. Zoom also doesn’t actually work in the highest setting. It turns itself off.

The Image Stabilizer I was impressed with. For such a cost-attractive device the image stabilizer worked it’s bum off while I jumped up and down and rattled my hand back and forth.

Oddly I think the Bloggie was made for a left handed person. Being right handed the record and zoom buttons were on the wrong side for me. Yay for all you lefties out there  Having said that though, the left-style buttons weren’t a terrible annoyance and I did get used to them pretty quickly.

All in all I would say that this product is aimed at someone who wants a video camera they can throw into a pocket and not even know it’s there. It’s great fun for outings and adventures and pretty much hits the target of being a video and image capture device that lets you share low quality recordings that are easy to upload to the internet or email.

If you are a video enthusiast though, I don’t recommend it. Rather stick to the bigger (even if it is more inconvenient) video camera aimed at your needs. The Bloggie has been built for a degree of abuse & has a durable, quality and lightweight body. In terms of recording quality it is a fun toy and is not to be taken too seriously. Good thing then that the price says the same thing!

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