MGCOOL Explorer Pro test - a cheap 4 Ks sports camera

Before turning to the camera itself, a little introduction is needed to disperse the fog among sports cameras.

Maybe it’s no exaggeration to say it all started with GoPro. It may have had a similarly sized, similarly resistant camera for athletes before, but we can be sure that their marketing was the loudest and add the most striking. Then silence. For years, there was no company that could replicate the success of GoPro cameras. It has become a benchmark that has affected the design world of sports chambers to this day, perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that everyone copies them.

A few years ago, the breakthrough came with the release of SJ400 cameras. Many don’t know, but the SJ400 is not a product of a company called SJCAM. The SJ4000 was a camera design that could be purchased and then used freely. Because of this, it was bought by a lot of companies, a lot started to produce SJ4000 cameras. There was a company who, in turn, saw the imagination in the success of the SJ4000 and created the SJCAM brand. The “experts” then cleverly distinguished between the original and fake SJ4000 cameras according to the fact that the SJCAm brain was manufactured differently. We would be lying if we said they weren’t a little right about that.

The problem was, and still is, caused by the fact that there are plenty of chipsets and image sensors available on the market, not to mention the optics and other components. So there were companies that were able to sell HD cameras for $ 10-15, while others were able to produce the same quality for $ 50+. Needless to say, it wasn’t possible to put together an HD camera for $ 10-15. As a test, I ordered one myself. Resolution and image quality evoked the world of the first camera mobiles. The real resolution of the camera, then advertised as FHD, was 320 × 240 pixels, which was interpolated to 1080p. Needless to say, I quickly got my price back, luckily I got it back.

SJCAM, on the other hand, tried to select the still affordable components so that the price would not come close to GoPro cameras with exceptionally good image quality. At the same time, I think SJCAM is still overpriced to this day, we can get the same quality and the same ingredients cheaper under a less upbeat brand name.

The big problem is that the situation outlined above has not changed to this day. More specifically, it has changed in that the strengthening of hardware and the fall in prices have led to the need to use a magnifying glass to look for cameras that cannot record 1920 × 1080, so 4K has become the buzzword that everyone jumps on and what cameras part of java can only be realized at the cost of magic.

Fortunately, there is an internet, so the smart person will first try to find out the type of chipset, and then the type of image sensor. From these two data, it is mostly possible to decide whether the camera is really capable of 4K resolution or not. Another question is whether we need 4K, but I’ll come back to that at the end of the article.

Now you think okay, it’s that simple, I look at the two data above and I already know what I’m buying. Unfortunately, you don't know. You don’t know because some manufacturers tend to give a completely different chipset or sensor name in the specification than what’s actually found in the camera.

What is the solution? Again, the internet, specifically Youtube. We find plenty of test shots, often including ones that compare images from multiple cameras. For example, at the end of last year, I myself set out to buy my first sports camera and get the first important information from the videos by watching these videos. You can see if 4K is not 4K, you can see the image quality, the sharpness of the edges, the saturation, the depth of the colors. After selecting the camera based on the videos I liked, I started reading the specifications afterwards and it turned out that the camera really had a Sony sensor, as well as the fact that the chipset used was the best among the cheaper ones. Our eyes are not lying!

I think as an introduction, that was enough, if anyone had any questions about sports cameras in general, ask it after the article. Now let's deal with the subject of our article with the MGCOOL Explorer Pro camera!