Canon Powershot SX230 HS

Recently I purchased the brand new Canon PowerShot SX230HS. This camera has a lot of technology built into it and is a fun camera to use.

This camera comes in black, blue and what Canon calls red but looks more like hot pink. Overall the camera is awesome for travelers or just everyday moment capturers-ish. However this camera isn’t suitable for professional cameramen or those who intend to become professional at it. Obviously if you are 1 of the 2 and don’t have and SLR you should purchase an SLR instead.



Canon SX230HS- Black Model



The same way as last time I reviewed the good and bad features of the camera and then expanded on each of them



THE GOOD

·      12.1MP CMOS sensor

·      Weighs just over 220 grams

·      Records video at 1080p at 24fps

·      3inch LCD screen

·      14x zoom

·      GPS logging

·      Manual Control

THE NOT SO GOOD

·      Battery life is short

·      GPS takes a while to connect

The 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor takes photos at a high resolution that is perfect for TV screens as well as projectors. I just loved its clarity and the photos were still amazing when they were really far away because of the amazing optical zoom. Even better, in programs like Adobe Photoshop or iPhoto digital zooming is no problem. The picture keeps its clarity till nearly fully zoomed

The camera lens when the camera is turned on

It is an amazingly light camera with all the features it comes with but it was slightly thick, still fitting into a pocket. This was annoying sometimes because a slim camera would fit even better in your pocket, but if you’re the person that carries around a camera bag or any other type of bag and you don’t want an SLR this is perfect

The 1080p video recording is very clear and was excellent outside. But when the recording was in low light the whole screen was a blur and out of focused. However the low-light sensitivity worked well in the photo mode. Other than the normal video recording mode (which is in HD) there were two other options to shoot with. The first one was i-Frame recording. This was just a video recording mode that made it easier to transfer to Mac users that use iMovie or iPhoto to collect or organize your video and photos much easier to transfer. The other mode, which I enjoyed a lot, was Super Slow Motion. In this mode the camera compensated quality for 240fps. Even though the area has to be well lit for this to work, it recorded everything 10 times slower than real time. So a simple jump off something looked awesome.

The giant 3inch LCD screen is one of the largest and clearest LCD screens I have seen on a camera. The quality of the screen was clear even in sunlight. The camera comes in a 4:3 shooting mode, which isn’t great for the 16:9 screen, but it can be easily changed in the settings

The compact mega zoom built into this camera got you as close to the subject as possible.  I mean its 14X, for a compact-ish camera that’s a lot. (It’s not exactly the slimmest camera out)

The GPS geo-tagging in this camera was accurate but unfortunately slow to start up just like a normal GPS. If you like this camera just because of the GPS, then you should take a look at the Casio Exilim EX-H20G.

http://www.casio-intl.com/dc/ex_h20g/g/ 

The manual control is a nice add-on to the camera and I ended up using it quite frequently. It gave you overall control of the camera. There’s also an easy mode, which is even simpler than Auto mode and literally the total opposite of the manual mode. The Easy mode takes care of everything, to the next level, but I didn’t use this feature too much.

Even though this camera is a great camera there are some slight issues.

The first one is the battery. Unfortunately the battery in the camera will only last a full day of shooting(approx. 250 12.1 MP shots, 10 mins HD recording and constant manipulating of the zoom). Obviously this can be replaced with another battery, which can be easily purchased.

However the bigger issue was the time it took for the GPS to connect. It took between 2-3 minutes for it to receive satellite connection. There is a mode to keep connected to the GPS satellite even when the camera is switched off. This mode quickly finds the GPS satellite but it also quickly drains the battery.


Now here's a couple of samples shot in Manual and Auto mode

f/8- 1/10

f/5 - 1/250

f/4.5-1/320

f/5.9-1/500

f/5.9- 1/160

f/5-1/160

f/3.1-1/160

f/3.1-1/50

f/3.5-1/30

`

f/4- 1/1600

f/4-1/50

f/5.9-1/500

f/4-1/80

f/4-1/1000

f/3.1-1/30

f/5.9-1/250

That’s basically it, the SX230HS from Canon

http://www.canon.com/

Hope you enjoyed this and found it useful.
If you did please leave a comment below,

Thanks,
Nithin

HP Envy 17 3D Laptop

Last week I had a chance to play around with one of HP's recent laptops. I had a lot of fun with it and this is what I found.

THE GOOD

•               17.3-inch 3D HD Display

•               Blu Ray player

•               Stylish cover

•               High Speed

•               Good Quality graphics

THE NOT SO GOOD

•               Touch pad is slightly annoying

•               Palm rest isn't too comfortable

•               Heavier than other laptops

•               Causes a lot of heat including the charger

So lets discuss these features.

The 17.3 inch glass screen is in full 1080x1920 HD which makes the Envy 17 a suitable desktop replacement and a home theatre style because of its in-built 3D Blu-ray player.

the Blu-ray player is also in full HD and is 3D which makes the movies come to life along with the beatsaudio

"Designed to reproduce music the way the artist intended" 

Dr Dre. http://www.beatsbydre.com 

beatsaudio

On top of the Envy 17's front cover there is a pattern that is appealing to the eye, well my eye at least.

The cover on top

The Graphics on this computer are pretty high end. It features the 1.60GHz Intel Core i7 Q720 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 2TB 5,400rpm hard drive, and 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 graphics.

But as always, this laptop isn't absolutely perfect, although it does come pretty close, it does have a few minor issues.

For instance the touchpad on the Envy is one of the new style which doesn't feature two mouse buttons but is integrated into the touchpad causing unnecessary clicks and also causes the mouse to jump about.

The second problem, as mentioned was the palm rest. Because of its metal construction it doesn't have a nice curve that is comfortable on the edge, but just a sharp edge which may cause pain to the bottom of your hand, mostly when operating the touchpad. I resolved both of these issues by adding a optical mouse making both problems mentioned so far vanish.


What i didn't like about this laptop was the weight of it. Just for an experiment I placed it in HP's laptop case and walked around with the laptop inside within 6 minutes I could start to tell my shoulder wasn't very happy. So I placed i back where it belonged and decided that the Envy 17 was a desktop replacement not a light laptop, which was ok because I didn't plan on taking it on long trips, for now.


The last problem I found was the amount of heat the laptop generated. Including its fellow charger, the laptop created a large amount of heat so you had to be careful not to place many objects near the laptop. But then again the laptop was multitasking while I was Running Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro, play a Blu-ray disk and surf the web without waiting a second for a response I was happy


Specifications

The laptop that comes with 1GB of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 graphics, a USB 3.0 and a 3D Blu-Ray drive also the 2TB memory is also very useful, other specifications are

•               An Intel Core i7 with Quad Core

•               Simplified daily PC activities with genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

•               A smooth, edge-to-edge 17.3" (diagonal) HD screen with 45% color gamut for crystal-clear viewing

•               ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 graphics with 1GB of ultra fast DDR5 VRAM and DirectX 11 support for the best gaming performance

•               8GB DDR3 system memory 

•               Solid State drive flash module for better battery life

•               HP ProtectSmart, which detects if your laptop is dropped and automatically locks the hard drive to prevent potential data loss

•               A slot-loading Blu-ray ROM drive

•               A comfortable, island-style, back lit keyboard with numeric keypad and over sized click pad

The ENVY 17 also features a range of ports including a External monitor port, a RJ-45 (network) jack, a Mini DisplayPort, a HDMI port, a eSATA/USB port, SuperSpeed USB port(USB 3.0), an audio out (headphones), and an audio in (microphone)

On the other side there is a Power connector,  the Blu-ray optical drive, a Digital media slot (SD,MS/Pro,MMC/XD)and 2 USB 2.0 ports

That’s a lot of ports, especially for a Laptop

The laptop the Envy features is called "Chiclet keyboard" which has a full number pad and the keys feel nice and comfortable feel when I typed. The keyboard also featured a backlight, which could be turned on and off but unfortunately can't be dimmed to how you want.

The HP Envy 17 also has some preloaded software which is almost plug and play just after configuring the operating system you get to use all of this, Hulu Desktop, Adobe Premiere and Photoshop Elements as well as Internet explorer and the HP essentials.

I really liked this laptop and if you buy it I hope you do too.

Please comment and follow for more cool reviews like this.

Again I hope you enjoy your new laptop or PC

Nithin

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/series/category/notebooks/ENVY173D_series/3/computer_store 

The HP logo on the corner

The 3D Glasses