Product Description

With the RCA EZ201 SmallWonder, there is no easier way to share and save the moments worth remembering. Whether a scenic vacation destination, a child’s basketball game or just a simple backyard barbeque with your family, this easy-to-use digital camcorder is ready whenever and wherever. Play, pause, delete, rewind, and fast forward clips on the color 1.5-inch LCD screen, which also flips out 180 degrees. The EZ201 offers up to an hour of recording with its on-board flash memory, which can be expanded up to five hours with the addition of an SD memory card (sold separately) that will slide easily into the unit's memory slot. Two standard AA batteries provide up to two hours of continuous use (or more than seven hours with optional lithium batteries), making the EZ201 ideal for vacations and travel. The EZ Grab feature also enables the user to select a paused frame in any video and save it as a single image.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1942 in Camera & Photo
• Brand: Thomson
• Model: EZ201
• Released on: 2007-05-24
• Dimensions: 1.40" h x 6.60" w x 9.10" l, 2.50 pounds
• Display size: 1.5

Features

• Capture up to 60 minutes of video
• SD expansion slot to add up to 4 hours recording time with SD card (sold separately)
• Flip-out, 1.5-inch color display; 180-degree rotation
• Retractable USB connection; built-in Memory Manager software
• Includes AA batteries, USB adapter cable, AV cables, carry pouch, and wrist strap

Customer Reviews

Small wonder compared
Ok, I was curious so I bought the Small wonder and the flip (FW160) to compare them side by side. The Small wonder does have the advantage of the SD card reader, plus the flip LCD. However, in dim lighting like around my house, the Small wonder has a pinkish/reddish look to the images (I tried two small wonders with same results). The Flip does do a better job in poor lit conditions color wise in my opinnion. You can see the small wonder gain up light more noticably when lighting gets darker, but the Flip did a smoother job at it and the image was brighter. The Flip also has a much brighter display that you can see much better outside. I wanted to keep the Small Wonder because of the adjustable LCD and the SD cards, but the resulting video with the red/pink tint in dim conditions was no good for me. But not all small wonder indoor video had the red cast, only with certain lighting conditions and it depended on what you subject was. People's faces ended up with a sunburn look inside in certain light angles. Outdoors it did great. The Small wonder's software was also a bit behind the Flip's. The Flips allowed a larger video window for playing back the video, it was also just a bit more user friendly (better video making software with music). I will say that the Small wonder does a good job of updating firmware etc. One other thing about the Small wonder I liked was it's usb connector was easier to connect to my PC because of it's location. I still think the small wonder does a good job, I just think the flip is slightly better image quality wise. Ok, I plugged them both into two different TV's. One was a small 20 inch and I will say they were both about the same (VHS quality was pretty good). You can notice that darker shots have artifacts/blocky but acceptable to me. I tried plugging them into a 50 inch plasma and must say the results are not too hot. While I could watch the videos, they were fairly poor (but this is probably expected for this type of mpeg4 camcorder). I plan to watch these videos on PC or smaller TV anyhow. I ended up keeping the Flip 60 minute version instead of the Small wonder.

Terrible picture quality
i purchased a 60min. flip camera from pure digital and loved it. then, a friend of mine got the rca small wonder, and i was jealous! i had to have one because of the extra features: flip screen, tripod mount and expandable memory. so i sold my flip and ordered the rca small wonder. i was so disappointed. the video is just terrible. so, i returned the small wonder and purchased the new upgrade of the flip which is 2GB, but still 60 min. great picture quality and they have made many improvements: quiet buttons (cannot hear them on your video), separate on/off switch, tripod mount...etc.....

bottom line: spend a little more and get the flip ultra.

Easy to use, OK video
The ergonomics of this device are pretty good. Simple buttons to do all common operations, no complex setup menus. The power switch does tend to get pushed by accident if you put it in your pocket though.

Video quality is OK, and works well for small size playback, but is not good for larger screen viewing. The MPEG4 compression makes things reasonably small, but given the mediocre quality, I would have expected the movies to take less memory than they do. The colors are somewhat washed out, compared to the movies my old Canon digital camera took. The low cost makes this a good camera to let my kids use. I wouldn't use it
for anything I really wanted to treasure though.