Toshiba Gigashot A100F Camcorder Review
Overview:
Pros:
- It has got a highly spacious, highly reliable mass storage which is about 100GB.
- The styled colours are a treat to our eyes and so is the design.
- The image clarity and quality are top class; the lens and sensor are also good.
Cons:
- The biggest disappointment comes to the limelight when you find that there is no Horse shoe or view finder
- The fact that it comes devoid of HDMI cable also ads additional overhead when it comes to High Definition
- A100F though compatible with normal systems is found to be incompatible with Mac. So, Mac users are going to get disappointed.
Review:
With the launch of Gigashot A100F, the world’s fifth largest personal computer vendor has come up with the world’s smallest Full HD camcorder. With its venture into the HD camcorder world, Toshiba has laid it hands on high definition and large capacity. Rewind half a decade back the makers launched the Gigashot taking advantage of video formats which could be recorded to hard disks. At that time this was one key technological aspect of Toshiba. Toshiba worked a lot on Gigashots and now they have come out with the latest inline product made with the old Japanese secret on the roll.
What is the highlight?
The 100F belongs to the A series of Gigashot. With a 100GB hard disk, this very product competes with Sony, Panasonic and Canon. Gifted with a 10x optical zoom up front and a 3” screen it is going to capture every iota of your mind. There is also a removable memory card which lets you commit 12 hours of HD video or 23 hours of standard video to its built in drive. It has an impressive frame rate and full sounding Dolby digital stereo audio. It does boast of smooth and quiet action that gives the impression that the lens is gliding to its target. The menus can be accessed and features selected through a combination of mode wheel and a small joystick meaning operation is intuitive and this device is a fast responder to user choices. Overall is this device the chosen one, we have been waiting long? Let us find out.
Design:
Small and easy:
With VLSI technology, many electronic components could be merged on to a single board which drastically reduces the size of hard drives. With both removable media and built in hard drives, the camcorders have become smaller and lighter. Definitely, it is not cheap but comes with a bristling technology and its size simply fits it into the palm. Though not the smallest camcorder, it includes a whooping 100GB built in hard disk. The videos can be recorded in AVCHD format. The model also boasts a sturdy metal built to its conventional styling and mix. The features include an optical zoom of 10x. The actions are smooth, quiet. The menus are accessed through a combination of mode wheel on the screens left hand side and with a small joystick located below it. This ensures the quick response to users choice.
Earlier camcorders were large and heavy. The Toshiba A100F Hard Drive Camcorder here brings in comfortable weightiness. You could simply balance it in the right hand. There are two tone silver and black styling which looks good.
Screen:
With a lot being invested these days on the making of the screen, the Toshiba Gigashot A100F comes with a 76mm or 3 inch screen. This LCD screen opens out to the left and has an aspect ratio of 16:9. The screen has a pixel resolution of 230,000. One specialty we have here is that the opening and closing of the screen would result in the camcorder shifting to the stand-by mode.
Impressive design:
On the right side, there is a rubberised grip along with an adjustable padded strap. The entire arrangement is quite convenient such that your index finger controls the zoom using the zoom rocker which is very responsive and also a dedicated shutter button. Enjoy capturing your stills to SD cards while filming. There is an option to record the video by using the dedicated video record button. With this alignment, you could use your right thumb to access it. The other controls are located on the back onto a transparent plate. These are meant for left hand operation. The functions and settings are controlled by a mini joystick with a scroll wheel above it. The connectivity sockets included are, namely the USB, AV out, component terminal, HDMI all of which are protected with rubberised seals.
User Interface:
With the menu controls on the LCD screen with an option of using a four way rocker or a plastic wheel that does the task of zipping through the options, it is quite easy to use the menu. The list is clearly laid out and the auto button keeps things basic. In case, you have problem in finding them do not worry, the auto button lights up the record button and the zoom tracker in a striking blue colour. In auto mode, the camera takes care of all settings. The only option for the user is zooming and recording.
The system of powering on and off, when the LCD panel is opened and closed is very convenient. A trouble that the auto option gives you is that, it turns on the digital zoom feature and leaves it turned ON even if you have reverted to normal mode. In the end, you have to go back to the menu to turn it off. Switch out of this mode and you have a few manual controls. There are separate buttons for built in video and backlight and manual focus can be enabled by manual focus, exposure control and flash configuration. There are a variety of screen modes including the portrait, landscape, sports, night scene, snow beach, sunset and stage.
Easy start up:
The start up in Toshiba Gigashot A100F Full HD Camcorder is simply smooth, easy and fast. This instant start up lets you shoot by a simple slide of your fingers under the hand strap to open the 3 inch wide screen LCD. Equally impressive are the frame rate of 60 frames per second and Dolby digital stereo audio. Disappointingly, you will not find an alternative view finder that you would get in Sony that would be activated once the bright light distorts the screen visibility; and neither, do you have the HDMI cable to connect this device to your TV.
Features:
Controls:
The joystick or the wheel lets you to navigate through the menu. These are on the LCD edge. The menu also lets you increase the video gain to intended levels. You can also switch between averaged and spot metering for exposure, or select one of the five available modes. You are also provided with an x, y, colour mode and option to increase or decrease the microphone notch.
Storage:
If you compare it with Sony Digital Camcorders you could observe some neck to neck differences. The storage is one case. A100F comes with storage of 100GB while Sony’s platter size is 120 GB. The Gigashot A100 holds over 13 hours in High definition which is a much higher score over the rivals. The footage or the photo is good under normal light. The colours are pleasing and the auto white balance actually does the job.
Heavy duty:
The built in capacity is something very large, to be precise, far in excess of the currently offered in the cards available in the market. The A100F 100GB Hard Disk Drive Camcorder provides the ability to stay up to 12 hours in high definition, and up to 23 hours in standard definition to its built in drive. Additionally, there is also a card slot for an optional SDHC card for storage of 2 mega pixel digital stills.
CMOS Sensor:
The sensor appears seriously good and produces decently good results. Under bright conditions, the colours were dependable. In an adequately lit room, it provided good colour accuracy and less noise. The colour and brightness can be improved in poor circumstances by raising the gain. So, this product is something that would suit the conditions of domestic audience. All praises for the sensible sensor.
Lens:
The high quality lens in this Gigashot A100F camcorder is one of the best available in the market. As we just mentioned, with this lens, you have an optical zoom of 10x; and, equally interesting is the digital zoom which gives you a 20x and 80x zoom. Focal length is the length at which the lens focuses the light to the focus, which allows you to view distant objects at a closer range. Our lens comes with a focal length of 4.5 – 45 mm which is very impressive. It has a filter diameter of 43mm and a maximum stop focus of 1.8 – 2.8 mm. The 35mm conversion focus is around 35.9mm. The shooting range in ‘Wide’ has a range from .01m to infinity, and in ‘Tele’ it ranges from 1.0m to infinity.
Audio Video Mix:
The audio video mix is quite impressive. Try your 37inch HD set with the Toshiba Gigashot A100F camcorder, you are sure to miss the sharpness in image that Sony gives you, but you are delivered with some realistic colours. Sneak peak into the internal shots a more detailed noticeable image is observed. Finally, the audio mix is quite impressive. So in all, this camcorder offers beautiful internal shots coupled with some top class audio quality.
Quality modes:
Toshiba has offered some quality modes in Gigashot A100 Full HD Digital Camcorder. The Gigashot uses a CMOS sensor which is also of similar size like others belonging to its class. This offers you a 1/3 in diagonal and 2.4 megapixels along with a 10x optical zoom. If your images are blocky then you can shift to the 20x and 80x zoom. The compression technique used is 4 AVC/H 264. This standard is called HDMV, which is a part of Blu ray specification.
There are 3 quality modes namely XQ, HQ and SP. The XQ mode boasts 18Mbits/sec. The frames here are interlaced than progressive scanning. HQ mode operates at 12Mbits/sec and SP at 9Mbits/sec. XQ records at 1920 x 1080 pixels while the lower uses 1440 x1080. Interestingly, all these modes run at 30 frames /sec. This might pose compatibility problems with European equipments, as usual frame rate there is 25/s. The still images have basically two options which are normal and wide. These correspond to 1440 x 1080 and 1920 x 1080 respectively. The video is recorded in MPEG-4 AVC/H.264(60 fps) and the pixels are recorded in 1920 x 1080i and 1440 x 1080i.
Add-ons:
The Gigashot A100 HDD Camcorder gives you a high video quality specification, but, it is devoid of lot of features which is sure to disappoint the video enthusiast. The AV connections are out only and do not include a microphone input or a head phone mini jack. An additional option of a 2400 mAh battery is also in its arsenal. Gigashot basically relies on USB connections. Apart from the HDMV video format, importing footage is less troublesome. There are proprietary ports with cables for composite and S video with RCA audio.
System requirements:
The PC requires the following criterions to be satisfied, to use the Toshiba A100. The operating systems supported are Windows XP Home Edition, XP Professional, XP Media Centre Edition, Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Ultimate, Vista Business, and Vista Enterprise. The PC is required to have a Pentium 4 with 3.6GHZ or Pentium D(duo) with 3.2 GHZ or higher. Primary memory or short term memory is the CPU uses to do common tasks like watching a movie or browsing through a website. Secondary memory is the hard disks which stores data for longer durations. To sum up, the system requires a RAM of 1GB and a minimum 30GB hard disk capacity required for HD DVD writing. The display adapter with 1024 x 768 or better is demanded or an NVDIA GeForce 7600T or better is required. Last but not the least the PC requires to be installed with a USB 1.1 or a USB 2.0.
Operating environment:
The environment in which the A100F operates is quite interesting. The temperature in which it operates varies from +5 degree Celsius to +40 degree Celsius. The humidity could range between 30 to 80 percent.
Performance:
Zoom:
Now, let us move on to the part of performance. The 10X zoom might not seem as impressive as the 30X zoom but the A100F has plenty of features that would keep it impressed. It exhibits a good colour stability without much hues. The white balance is also very reliable though it struggles at times with the lightings indoor. The zoom is quick to respond, auto exposure is flexible and cops up well with sudden changes from contrasting environments. The auto focus usually lags behind the zoom. So what happens is that it always is best to point the camera at the subject and let it focus before the actual zoom. Zooming an area of high contrast, busy frames out smarts the auto focus and therefore the frame gets blurred, thereby it would take some time to adjust.
Picture Quality:
The performance under low light is really good. It manages to illuminate objects a few meters away without being too harsh. There is a slight influence, effected by the noise in the shadow areas but it does not overpower the overall clarity. The start up is also smooth and fast which accounts for the reason this device starts up by a simple slide of your fingers. The frame rate of 60 per second is also equally impressive along with Dolby digital audio. When it comes to the sensor or the lens, the performance is still uncompromised. The sensors gave good accuracy even in an inadequately lit room not to forget the less noise. The adjustable gain feature also adds to improving the colour and brightness in spite of the poor circumstances.
Other factors:
The lens also offers a very good focal length and also gives you an optical zoom of 10X, lets you shoot in Wide and Tele modes and varies the focal length from .1 to infinity. The intelligence built in, does pay off. Also, contributing to the performance is the 100GB hard disk drive that lets you store your favourite stills, lets you record some of your precious moments in your life, store even a full length movie. So in all, this device is powerful enough and is sure to capture the market. The performance of the audio and video deserves a word of mentioning. The AV mix really is impressive, and notable is the realistic colour which you get while connecting the 37inch HD with Toshiba. In the end, Toshiba the fifth largest PC makers have made it a point to keep the ball in their court when it comes to performance of their devices. When it comes to A100F the story remains the same.
Accessories:
The Toshiba A100F comes with some accessories that are quite handy to use: the remote controller, USB cable, AV cable, software CD ROM, owners manual CD ROM, Quick help guide, Quick start guide, lens cover, Rechargeable Lithium ion battery, AC adaptor.
Battery:
The battery used here is the Rechargeable Lithium ion GSC BT6. It comes in two varieties; both in black colour. The lower capacity one comes with a capacity of 1200mAh and a voltage of 7.20v also compatible with 7.4v. It comes in a dimension of 40.80 x 37.41 x 25.46mm. It weighs about 85 grams and costs you about 5.20 GBP. The larger capacity one comes with a voltage of 7.2v; it has a capacity of 2400mAh and comes at a price of 11.67 GBP. Both of them carry a warranty of one year.
Gigashot A100F Warranty information:
Toshiba has finally tailored a fine suite when it comes to warranty. The product comes with an overall 3 years warranty along with equipment upgrades every 18 months.
Verdict:
Here we arrive at the final word about the product. Competing with Sony HDR-SR8 on memory size it falls a bit short of 20GB. When it comes to a viewfinder or a hot shoe, Sony ultimately has the last laugh. But when it comes to simplicity of usage, lay your hands on Toshiba A100F. Also, is the fact that it comes at a substantially cheaper price which could attract users because the features you have here is only marginally short when compared to Sony. So, with this price you get almost similar features of Sony. Taking the view point of an everyday user this product is an absolute stunner with a beautiful style and excellent performance. When it comes to the image sharpness you would experience Sony to hold an upper hand again, but the audio video mix blends well and stands out to give a good performance. The auto mode is definitely user friendly and simplifies the overall options. But, it irritates you by turning on the digital zoom feature and leaving it turned on even if it is reverted in the normal mode. The amount of manual options are less and not very much impressive.
The built quality gives you a plastic feel which stands out to be disappointing. What balances this is the fast response and reasonable fool proof design. The storage part impresses you with a 100GB hard disks, which lets you store almost everything you could imagine. Surely, this product is compact, small and easy to use. The weightless design is also one thing that needs highlight. Coupled with low weight and high capacity this paves the road for the next generation camcorders. Choosing this device is all in your hands. If you are impressed by the storage capacity, the image clarity and overall design and have the will to trade the size with capacity, do head to the nearest store where you could find this piece or just swipe your credit card number to get a new Toshiba A100F into your beautiful life for just around 392 GBP including the VAT charges.
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Toshiba Gigashot A100F Camcorder – Technical Specification Table
| Manufacturer | Toshiba |
| Model Name | Toshiba Gigashot A100F Camcorder |
| Model Number | GIGASHOTA100F |
| Series Name | A series |
| Dimensions (H x W x D) | 78 x 79 x 135mm |
| Weight | 555gm |
| Max image size | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Display Type | LCD screen |
| Display form factor | Folding |
| Display Size | 76mm or 3 inch |
| Display Resolution | 230,000 pixels |
| Recording media | Hard drive |
| HDD Size | 100GB |
| Optical Zoom | 10x |
| Memory Card Type | SD Card SDHC Card |
| Digital Still Shot Mode | Yes |
| MPEG Movie Mode Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| MPEG Movie Mode | With MPEG Movie Mode |
| Audio Format | 12/16 Bit PCM Digital Stereo Audio |
| Audio Input | Microphone |
| Microphone mode | Mono |
| Microphone type | Built in |
| Focal length | 4.5 45mm |
| Aperture | F/1.8 |
| Sensor type | Cmos |
| White balance | Auto, Sunlight, Cloud, Fluorescent light, Incandescent lamp |
| Recording speed | SP HQ |
| Min shutter speed | 1/500s |
| Max shutter speed | 1/8s |
| Sensor resolution | 1490 pixels |
| Output Interfaces | USB HDMI |
| Battery | Li ion |
| Cables | Ac Adaptor, USB cable, AV cable, Component cable |
| Warranty | 3 years |
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