Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SVAV30 MPEG4 eWear Digital Camcorder/Still Camera w/ 64 MB SD Card & Docking Station

Sorry guys... I saw this gizmo and thought as many do.."wow.. a video camera and digital camera in one and in a small package" (I didn't really care about the mp3 player and voice recorder).

I was/am willing to sacrifice some quality because of the size but this thing is ridiculous. Unless you are in DIRECT sunlight taking a picture of something 2 feet in front of you then this thing is worse than anything I can imagine (and even then the pictures are terrible).

The video camera recording/reproduction is useless...I have never got a decent recording.

If you have to use the flash (which seems like all the time) then all you get is bright white pictures.

I can't express how disappointed I was with this product. A friend of mine just got a digital camera for 25% the price and the pictures are 10 times the quality and it is only slightly bigger than this.

The only positive things I could say is that it is a great conversation starter at bars..etc.. since it is a cool package and draws a lot of attention (but dont try actually show it off by using it because it is pathetic) and that the software isnt "terrible" (although has failed to work a couple of times on XP but pretty solid for the most part).

My opinion---a waste of money--novelty wears off after 24 hours and then you look at what you have which is picture quality 10 times worse than a picture booth and a video camera that you can't use.

Sure - its not 3 megapixels and not regular handycam...but, it is exactly what it is advertised to be. Very cool. I'm glad I bought it. A 512 flash card will record an hour of video at the highest quality, which is plenty considering you can always carry more than one with you.

I bought a flash card reader to go with it which makes it easy to connect to your recorded stuff as if it were a drive on your PC. The process for importing MP3's is a bit odd, but works fine. Make sure you read the manual. Battery life is good.

Like many others have said, if you want to take pictures to print and hang on the wall - look elsewhere. If you want to have something that you can slip in your shirt pocket so that you dont miss moments that you otherwise might, this little doodad is perfect.

If you don't have an MP3 player, digital camera, digital voice recorder or digital video camera, this one device will do it all. If you have all those separate components, this baby is still great to have. Sure, the still and video camera don't have the resolution of the larger and pricier cameras, but hey, it fits in the palm of your hand with room to spare and weighs just a tad over two ounces. And you can pop it into its cradle and record video from an external source. The frame rate is only 15fps but I was still able to enjoy an episode of Seinfeld while waiting for a flight. And everybody who saw it had to know what it was and what it did.

Ok, when I bought it the guy from the store (in Miami) told me that the picture quality was about 3MP which is a lie, If you want an mp3 player (I never used this function, so I don't know if it's good), with other functions this is for you, as a camera or a movie clip recorder is not very good, don't get me wrong I loved the size an the slick design but I was after a little more that a casual digital camera.

The still pictures are always blurry, and poor quality, it doesn't have red eye reduccion, the flash is very bad, I use to have a Sony DSC-P20 2MP an it had infinetly better picture quality, we had the camera for 2 months, and we had fun with it, but after a while we started to really get tired with the picture quality so I sold it to a friend that was marvelled with the size and funtions (SUCKER!!), if you want something more seriuos but with all the advantages except the mp3 player try looking into the Minolta Dimage Xt (very small, 3x optical zoom, and also records movies with sound),the Canon S230, Sony DSC-P72/P10 this cameras blow away the panasonic.

But if you want a gadget that happens to be small, plays mp3 and takes pictures keep this.

PROS:
Size, Design, Mp3 player, records movies as long as the memory card allows.

CONS:
Picture Quality, Flash, not very flexable in the camera settings.

When reading these reviews prior to purchase, I got nervous that I would recieve a piece of garbage that didn't live up to the curiousity surrounding it.

I was wrong!

This is a great gadget for on the go, making home movies, anything. When taking a picture, if you are too close with the flash on, all you will see is a flash of white light. Just don't take it less than 1-2 feet away from the object.

I was very impressed with the video aspect. The sound was very impressive and I was able to watch the videos immediately after taking them, and the picture quality is impressive considering how small this is.

Overall, I'm really glad I bought this. The voice recorder is reliable, I haven't checked the Audio player, but I mostly bought it for three out of four purposes. It is absolutely worth it, especially to slip in your pocket and make videos/take pictures on the go.

TIP: The SV-AV30 comes with a 64MB Memory Card. If you are planning to use this full-time, or are taking this on a trip, buy an additional card. 64MB is really not a lot of room, especially if you will be using all of the options offered (Voice/Audio/Camera/Video). The memory cards are somewhat expensive, but if you invest in a high MB card, it will last you for a while.