Customer Ratings & Reviews

The video is good but I do not understand how to take photos . I cannot tell when the camera is fully charged . Sometimes it records and sometimes it doesn't . The instructions are hard to follow.

Bough this camera before a trip to capture some pictures of the family in the water. If you are running the screen a lot it east into the battery life, but you can tweak the settings to reduce the time the screen stays on and that helps. Works with standard GoPro accessories so it mated up with accessories purchased at another retailer with no problem. Video and picture quality is very good.

Is a great camera, is tiny, and cheaper, battery is not longer, but charge quick!!!

The camera and/or the battery does not work and Best Buy or Vivitar will not stand behind it. It is just a bad purchase.

Don't buy into the people saying the battery doesn't last on this thing, or the picture quality is horrible, or its hard to use. All that is nonsense. For the $40 I paid for this I did not expect $500 GoPro quality and neither should you. Having said that this is still a great camera for someone like me just getting into using action cameras. It has a few different modes including dash cam mode which may just push me to buy another one of these. Also it has wifi(which will drain your battery FAST if you have it on in BFE) which is nice to use at home if need be. I honestly don't use the 4k on this as it eats up too much memory, but the 1080 is just fine and is quite nice for the price I paid($40). FYI recording at 1080 with wifi off got over 2hrs of recording in, and still had battery to spare. Only reason it got 4 stars is that it does seem a little cheaply made, so not sure it would handle being dropped from any height, but once again for the price expectations need to be tempered. Overall this is a good little action camera that you wont break the bank on. Last thing it doesn't say anywhere on the outside packaging, but this camera only supports up to a 32gb micro sd card. Hope this helps someone.

Bought the camera and I am happy with it except the battery has NO LIFE. Battery is dated 09-2017 so it's OLD and probably no good. I bought the camera two months ago. I would have just bought a new battery for it but can't find one that matches it anywhere on the web. VIVITAR if you are reading this and want a better rating and keep a customer you need to make this right. Two new replacement batteries that are not out of date would be nice.

This is my second review as my first review that was approved wasn't posted. Followed instructions to the T. especially for battery charging. The camera only recorded one loop in the auto mode. Second use, after recharging again after only 3 minutes recorded in auto mode, the camera froze. I removed the battery and started recording using the wireless control and recorded approximately 5 minutes of 1080P video as the battery discharged quickly. Recharged the battery and set it to record in 4k and after several minutes of recording using the android app the app stopped working after getting a dead battery notification in the app and the connection was lost. The camera LCD was on but froze again. The battery indicator reflected half battery life remaining thus I left the camera in the frozen state with LCD on and it remained on for another 35 -45 minutes or so. The camera was very hot to touch. At this point, I had written my first review and continued with attempts to get the best out of the camera and recharged the battery again. Upon powering on the LCD welcome screen letters were not complete. I used the wristband remote until the camera or the remote experienced problems. I removed and replaced the battery again and was able to record approximately 15 minutes of 4k video using the app to control the camera settings. I could not determine which component was the problem or are they both defective. Video quality - 4K is horrible but then it's not really 4K it's upscaled to 4K. 1080P is subpar even compared to cable tv's 1080i playing on my Samsung KS8000 4K TV. I recorded similar video with my Samsung Note 4 in HD and if was far superior to the camera's 4k video. Wifi - Wifi connected easily and quickly however when my app froze and lost the wifi connection after getting a dead battery notification on the phone app although the camera's LCD remained on and the battery indicator showed half battery life remaining. I couldn't determine what the issue was as mentioned above the camera froze again. Apps and software- The camera didn't work long enough to determine the apps capability. The software is very basic and was unable to transfer files after the camera froze 3 times. So what is the problem Camera or software? My thought is the camera as the first videos downloaded/transferred smoothly and efficiently. I should have trusted the reviews about the battery and I should have given more consideration to the knowledgeable Best Buy representative who stated he didn't know anything about the camera as they were just received shortly before Christmas and the store didn't have them on display. My closing comments on my first review is more than likely the reason it was not posted after being approved. Thus I will refrain from giving details about Best Buy only products which are in general made to good quality standards.

I must say this camera is decent for the price. It has good quality video and picture capabilities. The only problem is it's next to no audio when you listen to it through the device itself you have to plug it into a computer with speakers. Also which is an awful quality or lack thereof is the battery it stays charged for only maybe 15 minutes of video time and you have to plug it in to charge 4 hours in order for it to get a complete charge. It's also difficult to find replacement for backup batteries for this online as of yet. But I would still recommend it for the picture quality and the price like I stated the only downfall is the battery and the devices audio.

The salesperson did everything possible to warn me away from buying this thinking I wanted 4K quality from a cheap Hero alternative that was easy to use. NOPE. I needed a super affordable cam for filming indoors practice sessions. I didn't need high-res graphics, and sound wasn't an issue for my needs. It is not an easy thing to use. No way. But it was manageable and it works. I had it up and running well for my needs within about 10 minutes after finishing its charge. I like this. Not sure I love it, but close. The remote watch and the ability to edit the footage on my phone is great. Altogether, it does precisely what I wanted. And, it makes a super affordable practical 'throw-away' alternative to a GoPro.

I tried to give this one a chance, the 4K was appealing, so was the phone control. It has so many issues, though -- it won't keep a connection to your phone for more than a few minutes, I couldn't record videos for more than 6 seconds for whatever reason, the battery life was terrible, the list goes on. I exchanged for a GoPro HERO Black and I am not looking back. The quality difference is DRAMATIC.

For that price you cannot expect an actual "GREAT QUALITY". Quality is fine. But there is a very important point: I ran the camera at 30fps and in 5 minutes the battery was half gone. I don't know if its just the battery that is not good or if it simply does not perform well. Vivitar has to find a solution for this recurrent issue (I read many reviews) An "Action Camera" is supposed to last long to capture all of the action, not just the first 10 minutes.

I bought this camera because of features compared to price and thought would be good value. Had reasonable expectations and did not expect GoPro results. Used with my drone and video was average to good. Acceptable. Love all the attachments and ability to use also as dashcam. But battery life was a deal breaker. Contacted support and they act like I don't know how to charge a battery and then the same return to them and pay song and dance. Very disappointed with customer service. I did use and recharge a few more cycles and battery life improved but still not great. Went from 5 minutes to 20 minutes. Seeing similar cameras available online that have better battery life and include a second battery sealed the deal for me. Returned.

I've used this camera for just over a year now, and I still love it! It records good quality photos and videos. The buttons are fairly easy to navigate through. The remote wristband hasn't worked as well as I figured it would. But I have the app on my phone for remote recording. I use this camera for sporting events and hiking. I would recommend this for anyone looking to save a little money over the more popular action cameras.

We bought 3 of these on sale for ~$36 each. They turned out to be a surprisingly good buy. We put one in each car and use the last one to record what happens behind our boat while underway. The camera's CAR Mode is really cool. In CAR Mode (little car icon) the camera records in an endless loop cranking out 498MB files seamlessly and sequentially ordered as .MOV files. Perfect for Mac and most other platforms. The files it generates every 480MB are uncompressed .mov files. We shoot in 1080P. The camera offers 4k although we haven't used it because our editing and viewing resources are not compatible with 4k yet. I will buy more as soon as they go on sale but will look for other alternatives if not. It appears software is out there just waiting for someone to manufacturer hardware that will run their software. The software on the camera may not be as polished as a GoPro or something from Apple, however, these Vivitar cameras have all the capabilities we need in our endeavors without the GoPro price tag. We have a Hero 4 Silver on a 3 axis gimbal and love the setup for the velvety smooth videos but it doesn't have CAR mode (endless loop recording). We have to remember to turn it on and off and if we forget the battery goes dead because there is no juice pack connected to the GoPro because it's on a stabilizing 3 axis gimbal and the cable might hinder smooth response from the gimbals highly accurate gimbal motors. The Vivitar does (there's that software I was talking about) for less money than a GoPro. As long as the Vivitar camera in CAR Mode has battery power it will continue to gather the last 3 hours of video it was pointed at. We have ours plugged into an external battery pack so it runs continuously until I unplug the battery pack. At that point the camera shuts down until the next time I plug in the "juice pack" at which point the camera boots itself into CAR mode and begins recording without any user input. Cool! Power ON it's recording. Power off it shuts down. Nice. I'm sold especially at sale prices! CAR Mode rocks!

I wouldnt give a go pro to my 4 kids if you paid me. They'd lose it in a second. This on the other hand is 1/6th the cost so I wouldn't be upset if it broke or was lost. I was surprised as to the quality of the video taken by this little thing and have had fun with all the video they made. They never lost it either so back in the drawer til the next adventure. Plenty good enough for the average user , no complaints. Took off a star because the quality is not the best for a camera but really what can you expect for this price

My son is very excited to use this camera. He plans to attach it to his bike helmet. We were all set to go, and then we discovered that we purchased the wrong size disk. I saw a 'frequently purchased together' listing at the bottom of this item so I thought that was the disk that fit. (I wish the packaging was more clear on the outside as to what size disk it needed.) Unfortunately, I was wrong, so back to the store I go! From what we've seen of the camera (without being able to actually use it) it seems pretty user-friendly.

The battery only lasts about 15 minutes or less and it takes really long to transfer your videos to your phone. It takes a lot of space on your phone if you don’t have enough storage. The only good thing about this camera is that it has a pretty good quality to the camera. Do not buy for taking videos. I would recommend buying the go pro better.

Most attempts to power on the unit failed. Either it would freeze on the flash start up screen or didn’t turn on anymore. Either way to fix it I had to remove the camera battery. The included remote watch battery was dead. when it was replaced with a spare the remote served the purpose of controlling the cam. As for the WiFi feature that can sync with an available app, it started to drain my fully charged battery down to 20% within 10 mins. The viewable angles of the camera screen was very narrow. So much that looking at the screen 8” away with both eyes had a dark and grey scaled image. Moving the screen back farther away helped, but the image isn’t sharp. I didn’t test the the quality of the actual recordings because I knew that I would be returning it.

For the $40 I paid for this I did not expect $500 GoPro quality and neither should you. Having said that this is still a great camera for someone like me just getting into using action cameras. It has a few different modes including dash cam mode which may just push me to buy another one of these. Also, it has wifi(which will drain your battery FAST if you have it on in BFE) which is nice to use at home if need be.

Purchased this camera as a replacement to one I had purchased three years prior on Amazon. The one from amazon broke so I thought this would be a good replacement as it was almost the same price. As soon as it was take out of the package, it felt light but cheap. Tested the camera but had several issues where it would freeze. Give it a few tries but decided to return it and go with something more high end.