Recording the Moments of Your Life with DXG's A85V
As summer rolls on by, you might find a pressing need to film the clouds in the sky (whether they are rolling thunderstorms or just cotton ball clouds) or roll the film for Lake Tahoe, arguably one of the most serene lakes in North America. We decided to see how the DXG-A85V HD Pro Gear 1080p High-Definition Camcorder compared to their earlier A80V model. The new version looks and feels fairly similar, and boasts 1080p HD video capture, 12X optical zoom, a 10 megapixel still camera, and touch screen controls on a 3-inch LCD display. It also uses SD cards, up to 16GB.
We reviewed their sister model earlier this year, and were pleased at the decent boost in optical zoom. That said, there aren’t a lot of other major differences. We didn’t see any significant changes in video quality- it’s still pretty respectable, a definite step up from some other ultra-portable cams or your iPhone. The weight and stabilization make for better overall video than smaller cameras, and the rechargeable battery life is similar between the earlier model and this one (and quite good). The 60 fps mode is still there, good especially for sports videographers- but it shoots in 720p instead of 1080i. We like the results of this change better than expected- interlacing somewhat defeats the point of a faster framerate, and the resolution drop didn’t seem to have much affect.
As before, you have a choice of filming options. We were able to snap up to 30 photos per second while the dual-capture mode allowed us to video record and concurrently take still shots. The still shots were sharp and reasonably balanced, though we don’t recommend using this as a primary camera. It might just be better than the point-and-shoot you have at home and is almost certainly better than your phone though! The still pictures have vastly improved from the A80V model increasing from an eight megapixel sensor to 10 MP.
We have grown partial to the nifty auto-focus system, as we were able to move the AF point around using the touchscreen LCD, and pick exactly where we wanted the shot to be without the hassle of reframing the subject. And durability was pretty good, though the flip-out LCD screen had a slightly-cheap-seeming hinge. Once again, it’s available in that most versatile of colors- black- but only in black. also, Mac and Linux users beware- support is only offered for Windows systems.
The biggest issue for us was the sound quality. We shot outdoors and indoors to poor results, as conversations and voices and music ended up murky and quite muted. To our chagrin, the audio recording was so low we could barely hear noise through the camcorder speakers when trying to playback on-camera. Our take: for the price, you get what you pay for. Decent shots and video that is more than satisfactory, but not much in the way of sound quality. It is still pretty lightweight and portable though, at 13 ounces or so with batteries.
You can purchase the DXG A85V for around $320 but on Amazon, it is around $270 at the time of publication. You can also check out DXG and do side-by-side comparisons of their models as well as purchase any of their wide range online.
