Xiaomi Smart Band 4 / Mi Band 4

Well, after delays and alot of personal stuff (including issues with Paypal of all things) as well as work to make way for maybe more reviews this year and also to build up things. But the Trilogy of this review is just middle on this one. Enjoy a video on the Mi Band 4. Costing £34,99 from the Mi Store in London, it was close to getting it free with the Redmi note 8 (since i paid £149 for the Redmi Note 7 Plus 34.99 for the phone.

The Packaging. 

Actually the design is pretty much the vibe of the Band, with Black and white and it has the vibes of those features very well, It brings everything clear but there is some racist language on the back packaging. This causes it to be a bit of a problem if you notice it.

The Front of the Box 

The one side of the box 

The other side of the Box 

The back of the Box 

Then we open the box and inside is nicely laid out with 3 sections, the Charger, the Box and the band itself. It brings a chance of things.

The contants of the box 

The charger 

The manual 

Then we have to look at the band itself 

The band 

The band 

The bottom of the band with the sensors 

That was actually a nice way to see how it looks and its good how I learned on the way it works, such as having to wash the strap itself with Water, Not to use it in saunas either. But It was an easy way to remove the band from the strap of the pulling of the strap. Which then can dock in the charger easily.

The Band in the charger

Its charging from a powerbank 

Then it was time to Pair the band and make Mi Fit. 

The Setup. 

It was a case of installing Mi Fit and then making sure it has the permissions added in . Then I logged in and paired the band. It was actually easier than I thought. But in 10 minutes I was setup and ready to go. 

The Mi Band 4 is connected. 

But then we deal with a new app, The MiBand 4 Watch Face.  This will make it nice to look at so I went for  a Teletext style one. 

its weird how this works since you have to tap one of these to get the custom ones from that app into the Band. 

This I had to tap on a different icon to apply it but it then worked a treat.

The new Watch Face

Which then I could just swipe down and then tap to start a workout, which it tells me if the GPS is working, a nice bonus, Its a shame this does ot have built-in GPS so I can save battery life since its still 2% a run of 10 minutes for Running with like say Google Fit. 

The Tests: 

In Water: 

I tried it when having a bath and its really cool that do stop the touch screen the second it touches water.  So that makes it easier, Maybe one day I will try swimming in a river with it. 

Running: 

Well now it was another day and time for my first try with it, lets be honest. It was a time to really see how it Performed. So for a run down to a bus stop. It was quite good and accurate, but other times if I use the app and it records but use the band and it hardly records distance. 

Sometimes it does record

and sometimes it hardly records

Sleeping: 

Well, this is not bad but then again its the earliest night i've been in bed except one other time this year but with friend problems on my mind, sleeping early was not going to be easy, let alone with a needy dog. 

The sleep stats in Mi Fit 

Google Fit is a bit easier to understand. 

Walking: 

Well, its the same aspect, as running, the Mi fit app does still stay if i say take a camera pic but over time if it's a long walk it can just disappear, which means the band stops connecting and does not keep the walk or activity intact. 

Conclusion: 

For that plan of a budget smart band, it really brings a few things to consider and really adds some perzang to it with the changing the looks and the extra features such as the stopwatch and alarm from before. There is a bit less reliance on the mi fit app but also it relies on it with the GPS which for the Redmi note 7. it wasn't going to plan as much as I liked. 

omracer's Rating: 8/10

The Good Points:

• Colour screen
• Good value for money
• Extra features
• Easy to setup
• Easy to set workouts
• 20-day battery life
• Works in the bath and in low water

The Bad Points: 

• The GPS can be hard for it to say for a long period of time
• It struggles for the Band to stay with the Mi fit app (part of the issue above) 
• 
  

Well, thats 2 done out of the trilogy of reviews. Will things happen with the scale, I'll find out soon

omracer

Xiaomi Mi Band 2

This was the second part of the bundle from banggood I purchased. However this one was to replace the Vidonn X6 which was getting wrecked from my life of running and its lasted me on a night out you know. But with new plans, I had to have a smarter one that was more durable, Xiaomi was the answer and for almost the same price (cheaper since it was from Banggood) then Why should I say no. Amazon also have it as well. The video is below:

The Packaging. 

Xiaomi really make it simple here with a White box and simplistic designs and a photo of the product. Which for this is no harder to understand than a billboard for a shop. The Mi logo is more fitting to the box than the logo they use mostly and the back has a lot of small print. Since this is technically not a global edition, it is mostly in Chinese which makes it off putting for some people but if you buy from Asia, you will get this happen to you. But Enough said. 

The bundle if your wondering

The top of the box 

The stock barcode Bangood 

The mi logo on the top 

The back of the box with the details on the band

A Lift inside

Now the presentation of the Mi band inside is spot on, very similar to the Redmi with the tab to pull it which makes it easier to get to underneath the band for the accessories The mi band is hard to get out of the box in all honesty but its only cardboard, lets not be too petty about it. Then we can get to the starp which the manual is showing underneath as a fold out booklet. Then we have the very short charging cable which one of those petty people will say "its too short" which these days can be solved with a power bank or a USB extension Cable. Then we have the nice strap which is a decent black and also gives a better fitting to the wrist. 

The Mi Band in the box

Lift the tab open and this is what you see

The strap itself 

The very short charging lead

How the bottom of the strap looks

Part of the Manual

The manual in further

We now get to the last part of the manual

The Setup

Now we cry, this is usually hard, well if you don't charge it first, then yes it is. Since it was shipped with only 1% battery which stressed me out (not the thing itself, more time to get this done quicker) so I had to charge it while walking rosie which defeats the point of  Smart Band like this. But once that was done, I installed the Mi Health App from Play Store (its not actually in the Redmi 4 China rom either if you really do care) and then let the app set up, Its the usual sign up for a Mi Account  then put in your health details, you know height in cm and weight (its in kg so don't guess like i did else it means a 30lbs weight gain for normies is a nightmare for the feabie life, well don't get wet). then you can sync it and the Band will update firmware first then once thats is done, you should be able to use the app and get it going with syncing it to google fit, starting intense workouts and more.

How the connector looks

When you can't change the weight

This is the nomal screen you will have 

This will be appearing from time to time, from firmware to fonts

You can see here how Google Fit integrates with the Mi Band

Testing some heartrates to see how it feels

Conclusion. 

Now from the testing i've done which is my normal life, it really does have a better accuracy to the band life which for me is ideal, I can know when i'm pushing myself and also know when I need to push myself more. Which for the half marathon coming up in April (its actually a shorter distance than the time it took me to run to Tavi Morrisons from Mutley Plain/Goodbodies) then i need to see what my best is without doing more than I already do. That and the Vidonn had a misleading app which means it never recorded my sleep properly. But from an easy purchase to much more information about myself shown to me, I'm impressed. 

omracer's Rating: 8/10

The Good Points: 

• Good Value for Money
• Google fit works with the app
• Easy to change strap since it detaches
• Heart Rate Monitor
• Easy design and setup in App
• Clear screen. 
• Strap looks stronger material than Vidonn
• No issues with Tile for Bluetooth

The Bad Points: 

• This isn't the global edition (for people who really care about English writing on the boxes) 
• The USB Cable to charge it could be longer 

And thats that, now I have to wait for Xiaomi to unlock the Bootloader for the Redmi 4 before you can get a decent review of that phone. But for now, i'll might fill in some short reviews if they take their time,

omracer

SJ8000 4K Wifi Action Camera

This was a surprise for me, but this review happened when I was pondering on ebay since I found out i had a £15 off £30 purchase if i paid via the mobile app and also I had some money in Paypal from a refund of a chargeback case against me for a copy of RCTW i posted to someone (physically put through the Royal Mail system). Which this was £31 including Postage.


If you want this one, you can buy the one i bought from eBay seller Comyur or amazon might have some 

The video is below

The Box, 

Now lets see how this looks, its actually very well designed for a Chinese product, which has some good features like 4K ULTRA HD and ACTION CAMERA as well as pictures of Mid to Extreme Sports pictured, but the main fact you see the camera is a good sign as well so you know its real, as the meme suggests. Wifi and 2.0" LCD are listed. 

The front of the box

The top of the front of the box

The sides of the box are more on the diagrams of the sports this can handle such as Skiing, Cycling, Rock climbing, Pyramid climbing something on a plane and even Sailing. But there are QR codes for the App this supports which is not too bad to be fair. There is also a sticker on stock code from the supplier i bought from on eBay.

The icons for sports this can handle

Pictures of sports along with the stock code and QR codes for the apps. 

Then we have the back of it which lists the full specs of the camera along with the Multipurpose and other things the camera can be used for, like a Dashcam or a CCTV system on the budget.

A massive table of the specifications on the back 

Then we open up the contents 

Now to be fair, for the money, you get quite alot in terms of accessories for the camera, like hooks and straps and some cables which makes this quite attractive, they did the nice thing of the camera sealed into the waterproof casing, which is ok but can be very stiff to get out, some of the bits are the same but i just did a picture of it all in, makes it easier to see i feel. 

How it looks in the box

A closer look

Some of the parts layed out

More parts

Even more parts

a bit more

more parts but the manual and camera included

The Manual

This was hard to understand along with the print being too small, which makes it look like its not worth having, except the pictures do make it worth it to see what accessory goes on what part of sporting equipment. But that took some detail to look at 3 or 4 times before evening knowing it was talking about the screws that are long, one half is traditional Chinese too. 

The front of the manual

Part way in

The chinese side of the manua

Another part of it

Setting up the Camera

Now it was time to use it, which after seeing it in the case, which worked quite a treat, I had to take it out of the case to fit a 1GB Micro SD card since thats is all i have since i loaned my other cards to my parents for their holiday. But it worked nicely and I looked at the settings for it, there were a fair whack of options i could use. From lowering resolutions to adding a watermark and more. 

The front of the Camera

The back of the camera

The back of the camera with the menu on

the camera out of the case

a look at the connections and the Micro SD card slot

Video Settings 

the list of resolutions to choose from

imaging options

what the options photo mode can do

the General settings like formatting the card and reset and firmware version.

The testing

Part 1: Normal Use

Now i would have high hopes for this camera and to be fair, it didn't dissapoint for the money it was costing me, Since it recorded 720p at 60FPS and thats a decent settings, which for the 1st test clip, was not that good but the cycling one really shown how fast it could handle. 

The details on the video

But the images were a bit of a let down, sure the quality was good but they were not Widescreen which makes this a major shame for blogposts and wide shots but it confuses me since if video can be widescreen, so can be the pictures, but oh well, also the light was slightly too bright for it, like a webcam style problem, but this only had an ISO of 50. 

A picture near a pond

That fisheye angle isn't that good in the selfie

the details of the image

But fitting the handlebar accessory was a bit of a nightmare since the screws were falling out and the rubber piece and also the diagram was too small to understand what was needed, ok it took me nearly 8 minutes to get fitted but that is still longer than usual for a simple put on a handbar type bit. 

preparing to fit the bit onto the bike

the front of the camera when its fitted

from the riders view, it looks ok but sometimes hard to focus on or the traffic

But when cycling, it was stable and working, minus a slight fault of tilting left and right which meant readjusting to it every so often to keep it straight. Also the sound was muffled when in the casing, just be aware of it when using it. 

a pic while trying to tilt it

Part 2: The PC Cam

This could also be used as a webcam, this was plug and play once you select PC cam on the menu if the cable was plugged in, it gave me 720p at 60 fps which was not too blurry but there was a bit of pixelation so that might not look good in some social eating streams which i'm planning on doing so this helps me .

OBS has the details, the mic does not work with it

how it looks on a stream for example

The Conclusion

So then, with a £32 action cam, how do i think it performed, I think it performed very well, it did what it said on the tin and using it was simple, no DLSR training needed. ok the wifi is a bit to work on if your not sure, but its not turned on unless you want it to be, a webcam mode is nostalgic but useful and a removable battery means you have a backup to buy if you need it. 

With this lot in mind

omracer's Rating: 8/10

The Good Points: 

• its pocket size
• good value
• removable battery
• 720p @ 60FPS
• the brackets for bikes are included 
• standard connections like micro usb, micro sd and micro hdmi
• webcam mode
• easy to use

The Bad points: 

• The manual is a bit of a not easy to understand
• if your a wuss with strength, the case for the camera is hard to open
• no widescreen support for photo mode
• the audio quality is not as good as i once thought, muffling and low quality
• There is a possible chance of overheating if overused

And that goes another review, I hope you enjoyed it and I will try to use it more soon.

Might be more reviews next week or the week after on food products if I have time

omracer