MGCOOL Explorer Pro test - a cheap 4 Ks sports camera
As I mentioned in the introduction, these cheap action cameras all look the same. Okay, not completely, but anyone who has seen one like this may already feel like they have seen it all. Your MGCOOL camera does not protrude from this rule.
The front is matte, with a very pleasant grip, but knowing this rubber material, I anticipate that it will peel off the plastic in five years. Before anyone says I’m evil, let’s know that the highly rated GoPro cameras are just like that in terms of rubber cover. fortunately this is not a big problem, you need to grab a cotton ball, a little alcohol, preferably from a pharmaceutical factory so you don’t drink it while cleaning, and wash off the aged rubber thing.
On the right side of the front panel is the optics, on the left side is the power button and at the same time the mode button, with which we will be able to navigate in the menu. Seen from the front, on the right side are the connectors, which are a mini-HDMI and a mini-USB as well as a microSD card slot that can hold up to a 64GB card. On the left side of the room you will find the holes for the built-in microphone with some two buttons, up and down, with which you can use the menu. There is only a back light and a button on the cover, OK in the menu. On the back we find the 2 × 320 pixel TFT display with 240 inches diagonal.
Looking at the inside, reading after the components on the net, we already have doubts in our hearts about whether this camera will meet 4K. The camera's image sensor is Sony's IMX179 solution. The big problem with this is that it’s only 8 megapixels, which isn’t enough for 4K resolution in the first place. the required 16 megapixels can only be obtained by interpolation, which already promises too much good even before the test videos are taken.
The chipset is the Allwinner V3 SoC, all inside one chip. The proci is a single-core ARM-based Cortex-A7 running at 1,2 GHz anyway. What comes to mind about the ARM architecture is Android, and don’t be disappointed, the camera runs a special version of Android. This is good news for those who can’t stand not to fuck the software on their devices. Well, you can look it up on the net! The Allwinner V3 isn’t the worst thing they could have put into this camera, but it’s not the best, say, so mediocre. In fact, it can handle the 4K bitstream. The bad news is that instead of the 30 FPS specified in the specification, it can only do 15 FPS, which is pretty much anyway if the image sensor is unable to capture the 4K image. I hope you can handle 2K somehow!
When it comes to chipset, or SoC, it's worth noting that if someone takes the trouble to find the factory specification for this chip on the Allwinner page, it immediately becomes apparent that 4K, or even 2K resolution, is not mentioned anywhere. In contrast, we find 1080p 60 or 30 FPS. So much for that.
After that, I dare to consider the described data as information only, according to which the camera is able to record 4K at 30 FPS. At the same time, let's not blur the other data at once, because as the resolution decreases, we need less and less computational capacity to transmit the bits and, of course, sooner or later the real resolution of the sensor will be achieved. I write these so that I’m well before the test shots are taken, so let’s stick to the fact that hope dies last.
We can also keep in mind that if you go to 1080 FPS in 30 and 720 in 60, God forbid 120, we can be satisfied. With 120 FPS and 720p combined, even slow-motion can happen! You don’t need particularly strong hardware to have the promised Time-Lapse, as it’s essentially a series of still images taken every few seconds or minutes, so you can easily take good quality 2K Time-Lapse shots!
Once again, I find it important to emphasize that when I write these lines, I’m still right before the test shots, so I only deduce the strength of the hardware based on the online information. I would be surprised if after the tests I had a different opinion than I do now, but anything can happen. Now let's see the menu just in case!
