Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a great action cam and is better than its predecessor and any of the GoPro products in many ways. Weight is minimal. The feature I'm most happy to see is the mount on the camera. This means you can mount it to most anything without needed a bulky/heavy case. For use on a Quadcopter (some people call these "personal drones"), weight is critical. The case adds another 60g, nearly 2/3 the weight of the camera. Thats 60g I'd rather not have to carry around draining battery. When mounting it to a helmet or other headworn method every bit of extra weight is weight you'd rather not have. The AS100 resolves that by adding a mount to the camera. HOWEVER, this mount is NOT a tripod mount. It is a smaller threaded hole that allows for an adapter to be mounted. That adapter has a standard tripod mount and anti-rotation pin hole. It adds minimal weight, but one could use the correct bolt to mount the camera directly in some applications. For example, on my quadcopter I'll use the proper screw to mount the camera directly to the frame and skip the adapter. The camera is now splash proof. This is great for the times when I would use it without the case (i.e. mounted in the 'skeleton' mount) and in environments that it might get wet: sledding, biking, hiking, etc. Another issue with needing the case at all times is fogging. In colder weather the case cools off and the camera heats up. This causes fogging inside the case and directly on the lens area. I could use the skeleton case, but most of the time when it is cold there is snow and I need the protection of the full case. They sell an anti-fog accessory, but I'm not sure it works and no case is of course a MUCH better way to make sure the case won't fog! The mounting options alone make this a great upgrade. However there are other features that make this a contender for best action camera: -50MB professional Codec. If you don't know what a Codec is, think "secret recipe for making video look great". Its like a higher bit rate MP3 for your music. More data means better looking video. I found the "Pro" setting made video look sharper and have more accurate and rich colors. Definitely noticeable even when comparing the AS100 "Pro" 1080P to the AS100 standard 1080P (50Mbit vs 16Mbit). -Improved image stabilization. The Sony's have an advantage to GoPro with in camera stabilization. The AS100 stabilization is better than the stabilization in the AS30. -Wi-Fi preview. The iPhone app (and Android) does not let you access every setting on the camera, but enough. You can adjust the recording quality and frame rate. The real time preview is something I cannot go without. I just connect it to my iPhone and voila! I can see a real time preview of what the camera is recording. Great for framing when mounted to something or as a viewfinder when doing more "run and gun" handheld style recording. -slim profile is better for speed applications vs the flat wide face of the GoPro. On small R/C aircraft this make a difference to the flight performance. On larger full size cars and aircraft it certainly won't but does mean less wind induced vibration and movement. There are a few issues that are not improvements. Those are: -To use the "Pro" Sony XAVC codec you need to use a microSDXC card. My existing SDHC cards will only record to the h264 codec (~20MB) and not the 50Mbit codec. Those cards are not cheap. They are only available in 64GB and up, and a card capable of 70Mbps read is about $60. Write speed need only be 10Mbps (50Mbit video is 6.25MB per second), but read speeds should be as fast as you can get so you don't have to wait an hour to transfer the video. These micro SDXC cards will of course also work in the lower bitrate recording modes. -I already mentioned the screw mount is not a tripod mount, but a mount for the tripod adapter. Not bad, but it would have been nice if it at least allowed you to connect it to a trips even if that isn't recommended. -There is no longer an option for 120degree or 170degree field of view. You can use 120degree by turning on image stabilization, but that will drain battery faster. You can of course always shoot at 1080 and then crop in post to get a narrower FOV, but you lose resolution that way. -No altitude data in the GPD log. No idea why. This baffles me. It is data most of use that use GPS are interested in, and I don't see any reason it can't be in the log file. Hopefully a firmware update can fix this. I have not used a GoPro, but from what I see, the research I've done, GoPro users comments, and what my needs are this one is the best option for me. What sold me on the AS30V was the video quality, stabilization, choice of field of view, mounting options (i.e. accessories), and the size/weight. The AS100V only gets better (well, apart from the loss of a non stabilized 120degree FOV). Sony is clearly moving into this market in a very aggressive way. I'm sure more good stuff will come, for now this is my action cam of choice for my hiking, biking, R/C flying, and other needs. What card do you need? There is some confusion about the right card to use. The camera can record up to 50Mb/s. That is "Megabit" per second. Not "Megabyte" per second. 50Mbit is only 6.25MB. So any Class 10 has the speed BUT it must be a micro SDHX card to use the "Pro" codec. A microSDHC card may have the right speed specs, but it won't work. It us FAT32 format and needs to support EXFAT format. The Samsung microSDHX card that is 70/20MB/s is the one I'm using. It works just fine for both h.264 and the Pro XAVC codecs. Some Test Results: Record time with wi-fi and GPS on: 1:55 (1080 30P, XAVC "pro" mode, stabilization off, monitoring via iPhone every 20-30 minutes, stock Sony battery on its first cycle)