Chilli Technology Mini Cam Pro HD 720p Sports Action Camera

It seems mini video cameras are two a penny these days, and the latest to arrive at road.cc is the Chilli Technology Mini Cam Pro HD 720p camera. It takes decent video, and is very keenly priced if you're happy to lose a few features of pricier action cams.

Chilli make a whole raft of cameras, this one follows the GoPro styling lines, with a rectangular camera housed in a clear plastic case. The case ensures it's well protected from the elements, and it's compact and pretty light too.

On the front of the camera is a 120 degree wide angle lens and around the back is a 2in LCD screen, which makes it really easy to review video footage. That's something the similar looking GoPro doesn't offer, so that's a bonus straight away. However, while you can turn the screen off when the camera is out of the clear waterproof case, operating it inside the case doesn't allow the screen to be switched off. This clearly impacts on the battery life.

Despite its diminutive size, the lens provides good quality video with a reasonably crisp and well saturated appearance, at least on a par with the GoPro. However, as the test video shows, the camera is slow to adapt to rapidly changing light levels, such as those you find riding down country lanes. See for yourself:

It records at a maximum of 720p (1280 X 720 pixels) at 30 frames per second, meaning smooth video playback. Those wanting 1080p video will want to look elsewhere, but in reality you're probably only uploading to Youtube or Vimeo and the quality is plenty high enough. It'll also take photos at 5MP resolution (2592x1944 pixels), but I found this a less useful function, especially considering my smartphone has a 8MP camera.

Included in the box is a head strap, curved helmet mount and a flat helmet mount, so a few options for mounting. The mounting system looks similar to GoPro, but it isn't. That's a shame. A handlebar clamp would be a nice addition in the box from the start.

The supplied mounts work well, though; the curved helmet mount is easy to fix to a regular helmet. On the helmet the camera adds quite a bit of weight, and I found it pushed the front of the helmet down, forcing the front section into my forehead. I had to dial in the retention system on my helmet to stop the helmet bouncing over bumpy roads, an action exaggerated by the weight of the helmet.

The battery life isn't as good as the GoPro, at a claimed 1.5hrs compared to the GoPro's 2.5hrs. In testing I got close to the claimed time, which I found plentiful for short bursts of filming when out riding. The battery can slide out and be replaced by spare if you want to film for longer. If you want a video camera for commuting, as is popular these days, then it should be more than enough for a round trip.

As with most compact cameras like this one, the audio capture is the achilles heel - it really isn't all that great. It's no worse than other cameras like this though.

At £120 (though I've seen it cheaper on the internet) it's nearly half the price of the GoPro HD, but the later does offer higher quality 1080p filming. It comes supplied with an 8GB SD card, with capacity for a 32GB card.

Verdict

Comparable to a GoPro but at nearly half the price, the Chilli Technology Mini Cam Pro HD 720p is a good, easy to use camera.