Reviews
Forget The RODE VIDEO MIC GO - GET THIS INSTEAD!
I have a YouTube channel "TechSavvyBuyer" and having a high quality shotgun mic is a necessity. My go to mic has always been the Rode VideoMic Go, a $80 microphone that gets the job done well but needs a fair amount of post-processing to get the audio "just right". This microphone is a game changer! It is not only cheaper but it also has a few additional features that I think are totally worth it. Lets take a look at the pro's and cons.PROs:Excellent Build QualityIncludes a travel case and wind muff filter (very nice touch and excellent quality - doesnt feel or look cheap at all)Price is perfectAdjustable db level via 2xAAA batteriesMic Sensitivity is perfect for vlogging and YouTubingLow Cut Filter is great!SOUND QUALITY IS FANTASTIC!Cons:3.5mm cable is built-in. If this gets destroyed or frayed this mic is pretty much uselessBatteries required for the mic to work, if you're out of batteries you're out of luckNeed to turn the Mic "on" for it to work (i forgot to do this once and shot a whole video without audio - needless to say it was a PIA!)Conclusion: This mic is a solid and totally worth 4 stars. I docked one star because the 3.5mm cable cannot be changed for another and the fact that the mic doesnt work without batteries, compared to the Rode Video Mic Go which doesnt need batteries. The main thing that matters however is the sound quality, which is fantastic! I dont have to do as much post processing with this mic and it has made itself into a solid addition among my camera gear. If you need a decent mic and are on a budget, you will be happy with your purchase of this.
05/03/2019
Related Reviews
Wow. A _great_ camera and at a _low_ price
The media could not be loaded.
I bought this camera to replace one that was probably 12 years old. It was fine until its motion sensor stopped working. I used it in my back yard to see the deer, racoons, possums and occasional cat that lurk about at night.This Alpha Cam camera was probably half the cost of the old one and is waaaay better. The video is _amazingly_ clear, except of course for the eyes. This camera is proof that technology has made huge advances while its price has gone down.Setup is super easy, but I wish the manual was more detailed about what the option choices mean. Flash mode' is an example--low, high, and long range are not intuitive. Luckily, the Alpha Cam web site has a FAQ that explains them.
I bought this camera to replace one that was probably 12 years old. It was fine until its motion sensor stopped working. I used it in my back yard to see the deer, racoons, possums and occasional cat that lurk about at night.This Alpha Cam camera was probably half the cost of the old one and is waaaay better. The video is _amazingly_ clear, except of course for the eyes. This camera is proof that technology has made huge advances while its price has gone down.Setup is super easy, but I wish the manual was more detailed about what the option choices mean. Flash mode' is an example--low, high, and long range are not intuitive. Luckily, the Alpha Cam web site has a FAQ that explains them.
27/01/2023
Great camera & outstanding customer service
Bought this for monitoring a property and testing it out while it’s close before we deploy it. Camera didn’t take very long to set up, although I did have to play with it to figure out how to get it to take a photo initially, but the instructions are really great (make sure and read the small handout first!), including directions on how to troubleshoot (which is what I used to check whether it was able to send photos). My biggest compliment goes to the outstanding customer service and rapid response to my questions. Looking forward to getting a lot of use out of this!
24/12/2022
Excellent camera, support could improve
Once I received a fully working camera, it was fairly easy to set up and worked flawlessly out of the box. I went with this one after researching several others for a few reasons, primarily because it uses the relatively inexpensive simHero card for sending pics to my phone. I purchased to use for security purposes in an area without electricity/wifi, and it provides peace of mind that I am notified by text (with a pic) if motion is detected. The quality is really good, and I like that it can take both video and pics (only sends pics to email as far as I can tell).I would have given full 5 stars for ease of use, but unfortunately I received a bad camera the first time around that would not send out the pics. I opted to work with the company to resolve the issue instead of just returning and purchasing a new one, and spent a lot of unnecessary time in communications and troubleshooting. While they seem friendly, response from support is extremely slow and not particularly helpful. They sent me a new SD card as their proposed solution (after several days of delayed, back-and-forth email and text communications) and it did not resolve the issue. I ended up returning the bad camera and purchasing a new one.All said, I may have a need for a second one in the future and will definitely purchase another!
11/08/2022
Great Camera and Great Customer Service
I have two of these at my cabin. One camera is covering the driveway. I like knowing if anyone is walking up the driveway when I'm not there. I also can tell how much snow has fallen since the last time I had the driveway plowed. The cabin is off grid with solar panels and batteries. The second camera covers the cabin and solar panels. I have an alarm system that runs by batteries, so it's helpful to know if the solar panels are covered with snow and not keeping the batteries charged. It's also interesting to see an occasional deer or turkey walk by. I like getting an automatic photo every day, so I know the cameras are working and the status of the driveway snow and solar panels.
30/04/2022
Good camera which works well
This is a good camera to use in the garden with the kids. It’s very easy to use if you just plug it all in and leave it out, admittedly the menus take some going through and a fair bit of setting up with time, date and other settings for still pictures or motion capture but you don’t need to mess with all these. They are mostly self explanatory and although you can leave most of them alone I’d recommend setting the time and date as a minimum as it’s on the footage.The quality of the build is very good and it does take 8 AA batteries which is a lot but as we found with the sensitivity being near a tree meant that the moving branches set it off all night so use rechargeable batteries if you don’t want to be buying a lot.It used the good old flash cards which I’ve not used for a long while now with everything being micro as now and there was no issues plugging this in to the laptop and browsing the media folder, we have been reducing what we get though as there are normally hundreds overnight in a busy plant/tree place.It’s really good fun to use and it does get exciting going through the footage the next morning which you can skip through on the display and play back videos without having to plug the ads card into anything which is a time saver and saves an extra job to do before being disappointed about capturing 60 pigeon videos and some leaves.Highly recommended to play with one of these, we have no idea we had a secret pet hedgehog which we now feed.
26/01/2022
Well made camera - waterproof AKASO
The water chamber is really well made. The buttons work well. Picture quality is excellent and battery holds up well. Got some good underwater videos.
01/01/2022
Great camera with great customer support!
Great day and night photos & videos. Easy setup. I use this for watching cats and raccoons. Support quickly answered my question on best setting to use to motion detect cats and raccoons.One week later. I rebooted and had trouble getting setup. Support got me back up and working. This is a great camera.
05/12/2021
Best camera I've bought
I bought 4 of these cameras for elk scouting on public land since they were cost effective. As it turns out they are the best I've had. Lightning fast trigger speed and super clear pictures make these a real winner, especially at this price point. I bought 3 more since and likely we'll be purchasing even more yet.
15/05/2021
Top Bestselling Products
