The Luxe Camera of Miss Universe?
We don’t usually watch beauty pageants here. Not that there is anything wrong with beauty- quite the opposite in fact! It’s hard to resist the attractive allure of a new, shiny gadget, even (or especially, depending on your tastes) if it is covered in argyle. No, the reason for not watching beauty pageants is that all too often they end up a bit disappointing- flash over substance. We’re sorry to report that the same is basically true of today’s contender, the DXG-533V SOHO Luxe Digital Video Camera.
This is the first item we’ve seen from DXG, but certainly not the first camera that has graced our pages. And we were prepared to be impressed- the camera certainly looks attractive and offers decent stats, and offers 720p digital recording, still image capture at 8 megapixels, and a nice handheld portability. The screen is pretty large, and though the internal storage isn’t exactly expansive at 128MB, you can expand it easily with SD cards. And there is HDMI out for simple viewing, along with USB 2.0 for easy transfer!
But all of that covers up what is essentially a mediocre camera, with plenty of flaws lurking just below the surface. Audio is mediocre, for starters, and video quality is surprisingly murky, with muted colors and generally dull. Move the camera just a bit, and expect shaky-cam imagery that wouldn’t impress anyone. There are a bunch of built-in features that were fairly impressive sounding, like white balance, effects, and a stabilizer- but they unfortunately didn’t help much. And I hope you don’t want zoom, as this model comes with only a paltry 3x- digital, not optical, meaning that it’s essentially worthless. There is a built-in flash, interestingly, and battery life isn’t too shabby via either AAAs or Lithium-ion rechargeables. The user interface isn’t great, and the buttons feel cheap, but here we get to bring out perhaps the best part- the Luxe 533V is a cheap date. At a bit over $100 on Amazon, it’s certainly at a reasonable price range, about at the level where you’d feel comfortable handing it to the kids. And it was all over the Miss Universe pageant- they seem to the image part down. Maybe they can work on the actual imaging!
Available in several colors and styles, primarily online. If the Luxe series doesn’t grab you, DXG does offer many other models in the same price range.
