Take 2: another look at Xiaomi’s so-so GoPro (RE-REVIEW)

Last week’s review of the YiCamera, a GoPro-like camera backed and sold by Chinese phone maker Xiaomi, brought its fair share of divisive criticism. By my own admission, footage from the sports camera that others had posted looked noticeably better than my own. Obviously, Xiaomi wasn’t very happy about the review, either.

In the spirit of fairness, I decided to give it another go. Xiaomi sent me a second unit to test, which I did as best I could under similar conditions. Obviously, I couldn’t recreate the concert footage, but I did film more bike ride video under an equally overcast sky (Shenzhen skies are almost always overcast this time of year) along with some dimly lit walking footage at night. I also made sure to wipe off the camera lens before hitting the record button, as some readers pointed out that my video looked as if the lens was dirty.

So now, with all things equal, I can say the video from the second camera is a marked improvement on the first. Everything looks much sharper this time around, at least when the camera is held still. Much of the haze from the first video is gone, and bright lights don’t wash out onto the foreground as heavily.

At low speeds on the bike, the video could pass for a low-end GoPro. But as the pace picks up – and the terrain feels bumpier – the lack of image stabilization is still an issue. During my daylight test, the YiCamera is fixed onto a Cowboy Studio shoulder mount. As soon as I start going faster on the road or take to the sidewalk, the bumps make the video hard to watch. For mountain biking and other shaky activities, this is still a deal breaker.

The camera also has a tough time distinguishing patterns and textures, such as the leaves of a tree, which just look like pixelated green blotches.

The YiCamera has a tendency to over-expose, though not nearly as severely as my first video. The sky is a sheet of bright white on an overcast day, and some objects – buildings, cars, and even asphalt roads – often appear whitewashed due to slow and imbalanced metering.

Whereas before I knocked the YiCamera for objects falling out of focus if they weren’t dead and center, this time around everything pretty much stayed sharp right to the edge of the frame. But again, once things got bumpy, motion blur became a problem no matter where the focal point.

Colors are fairly accurate, if a bit dull. Nothing has changed there.

The YiCamera’s protruding glass is a magnet for oil and grime. Forget touching it with your greasy fingers; just brushing it with my arm or a graze with the back of my hand left noticeable smudges. I advise owners to wipe off the lens before each shooting session.

On a side note, in my previous review, I said the camera lens is fixed at f/3.6 aperture, which is what my computer read it as when I imported the video. Xiaomi assures me the lens is actually f/2.8 – the same as a GoPro – and the correct aperture will be reflected after a firmware update.

For the night video (see the second half of the Youtube clip), the camera is placed in a shopping bag as I walk home from the supermarket. Video in low light can get quite grainy, too much to make out faces and other details most of the time. The video looks much darker than reality, but colors still show up fairly well. Lit-up signs are, as before, overexposed and washed out. To be fair, though, GoPros aren’t exactly spectacular at night, either.

Conclusion

On the whole, I concede that I was too hard on the YiCamera in my first review and probably not diligent enough about keeping the lens clean during testing. Many issues persist, but it’s hard to expect better for the money.

My conclusion hasn’t changed: you won’t find a better action camera for the price, because there is no other action camera at this price. I’m upgrading it from "no-no" to "so-so."