Garmin Virb or Fly 12 ..or an other

kingrollo

Ive been wanting a camera for a while - but an incident last night has brought things forward a tad

I have an andriod phone , but no ipad and of course a PC . Battery life is important to me - the fly 12 seems a good piece of kit - but the app/software run on windows ?

Or would the virb be better ?

PS- no discussion about whether camera's are good or bad - thanks

redvision

I found the virb very poor compared to a gopro. Not tried the fly12 but a club mate uses one and says videos are often shaky due to vibrations caused by its weight.

If I were you I would wait until black Friday as usually there are deals on action cameras.

ianlash

I had the original Virb Elite with a spare battery, but changed to a Fly12 and find its battery life is so much better. Also, the Virb did not do looped recording, which was a real pain.

I have mine upside down on a mount which has my Garmin on top, and don't have a problem with vibration someone else mentioned.

I use it with an iPhone (when I need to configure it or get videos off) which works well, and they now have an Android app, although I have no experience of that.

The Fly12 is £179.99 on SportPursuit for the next 6 days if you decide to go with it.

adlopa

I recently invested in a Fly6 for the rear and a GoPro Hero Session for my helmet (so I can record 'conversations' with other road users, should the need arise), for no-doubt-similar reasons to you.

Apart from the 720 resolution, the Fly6 is great – long battery and fuss-free looped recording. So other than keeping it charged, there's nothing to worry about.

The Session is only so-so – picture quality is good enough in good light, but it needs recharging after each day's 2x 50-minute commute and the memory card needs wiping manually. Its 'looping' only applies to each recording session, rather than to the card capacity, so it stops recording when the card is full. That said, it's small and light, and I couldn't find anything better.

bendertherobot

The thing about the Fly 12 (not the 6 which is a rear) is that claimed battery life at 400 lumens is 2 hours. A shade more than my Cateye Volt 1200 and way less if I turned it down to 400 lumens.

So, if you want something to use every day, then you will be charging it everyday, just like the Session. Which brings us back to looping or lack thereof.

My Session 5 is setup at 1080p 60fps and will take 2hr 30 video on a £15 64gb sd card, enough for both ways on the commute. The pic quality is considerably better than any other camera I've tried.

Here's some footage. Bear in mind that any pixellation or grain there is only on the upload, it's completely absent on the original which is pin sharp.

https://quik.gopro.com/v/y4FgpXYIiY/

And, of course, if you want to take it skiing, swimming, underwater, or to centerparcs down the rapids, a Fly12 or Virb won't be as good.

cgfw201

i've got a virb elite which i reckon is really good, although i didnt pay for it so not a totally fair opinion.

only thing i have noticed is that the picture quality is much better at 60fps 720p than 30fps at 1080p (which is the max).

ianlash

bendertherobot wrote:

The thing about the Fly 12 (not the 6 which is a rear) is that claimed battery life at 400 lumens is 2 hours. A shade more than my Cateye Volt 1200 and way less if I turned it down to 400 lumens.

So, if you want something to use every day, then you will be charging it everyday, just like the Session.

Yes, but you don’t have to use the light. Without using the light you can get 10 hours.

bendertherobot

ianlash wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

The thing about the Fly 12 (not the 6 which is a rear) is that claimed battery life at 400 lumens is 2 hours. A shade more than my Cateye Volt 1200 and way less if I turned it down to 400 lumens.

So, if you want something to use every day, then you will be charging it everyday, just like the Session.

Yes, but you don’t have to use the light. Without using the light you can get 10 hours.

Indeed. But if you do, you don’t. And 10 hours is only relevant in terms of charging as you won’t record 10 hour rides.

Putting a session on charge takes a few seconds and it charges very quickly.

It's worth noting that the video stabilization in the Session 5 is very good indeed.

the_cyclist_of_catan

ianlash wrote:

Also, the Virb did not do looped recording, which was a real pain.

My Virbs (I use two) loop just fine.

It was added as a feature by Garmin in a firmware update.

What the Virbs have going for them is the battery life, the built-in water resistance, the easy on/record button and the price.

kingrollo

OP here.

Went for the fly12 ...price drop to £180 at a few places now.