The Eken H8R action camera is part of Eken’s H-series of 4K Ultra HD cameras.  My colleague Pavle, founder and Editor-in-Chief of Pevly, tested their H9 camera, another (nominal) 4K model, earlier this year and had quite a favorable impression. He said it’s “one of the best cheap beginners action cameras” and included it on his list of Best Action Cameras.  My H8R was selling for about $8o to $100 in the US (around 71€ to 89€) at the time of this test but the retail list price is $136 (around 121€).

At those prices is the H8R as good a value as its $49 (about 44€) H9 sibling?  Does it deserve equally high praise?  Read on for the answers to those questions and many more.

Specifications

The H8R is a dual-screen camera.  In addition to the 2-inch LCD screen on the back of the camera it has a smaller, front-facing status screen that displays basic information including battery status, WiFi On/Off, mode, video resolution, frame rate and the count of the duration of the video or remaining photos.

The camera has a Sony IMX078 image sensor and a Sunplus 6350 image processor.  The “R” designation in the H8R model number indicates that a 2.4 GHz wireless remote control is included.

The specifications according to Eken are:

[go_pricing id=”ekenh8r”]

Unboxing

If you want to see what’s inside the box check out this unboxing video!

Accessories

This box is rich with accessories.  It contains:

• 1x Camera
• 1x Waterproof case
• 1x Handle bar mount
• 7x Screw mount
• 1x Clip mount
• 1x Plastic case mount
• 2x Helmet mount (3M)
• 4x Bandages
• 1x Battery
• 1x Lens cloth
• 4x Tethers
• 1x Metal tether
• 1x Protective backdoor
• 1x USB cable
• 1x Wall charger

Design and Build Quality

The Eken H8R has a good design.  It’s has a beautiful look and feel and seems very well built. All around the camera there is the classic anti-slip surface and on the front the plastic is completely matt with a rubbery feel.  Personally I love it!

There are three buttons and all of them are big enough to fit your fingers perfectly.  They also have a good mechanical “click” sound when you press them followed by a “beep” from the internal speaker.

The resistance is perfect – in fact it’s impossible to accidentally press them.

The battery space is so precise that you can use it without the door because the battery is hard to pull out even with your hand. During my tests I noticed that if it’s been on for a long time it heats up enough to burn your fingers around the SD card slot the screen gets very hot.

This is probably because it is so compact.  I suggest that you don’t use it for too long time continuously, like a dash cam for instance, because it might actually melt some parts of the camera.

Buttons, Lights and Ports

As you can see, the Eken has only three buttons.  Let’s make a list of them and some other external features:

1. Shutter / Selection Button
2. Main Screen
3. WiFi Button
4. Power / Mode Button
5. Status Screen
6. Lens
7. Micro USB Port
8. HDMI
9. Micro SD Slot

On the Main Screen you can see:

1. Remaining Rec Time / Remaining Photos
2. Recording Time / Amount of Photos
3. Mode
4. Resolution
5. Battery Status

On the status screen you can see:

1. Rec Time / Amount photos
2. Mode
3. WiFi on/off
4. Battery status
5. Resolution

Both screens are easy to see.  The main screen might be a little less so in full light but the status screen is also a color display and easy to read in all lighting conditions.

As you can see the Eken H8R doesn’t have  ANY LED’s.  I think this is a very stupid design choice because you can’t tell if the camera is recording or not or if it’s recharging or not.  Depending of your position or distance from the camera you can’t understand what it’s doing!  It has an “auto switch off screen” to turn off the main screen automatically after 1, 3 or 5 minutes.  When the screen is off, from the back of the camera you don’t even know if it’s still working so you’re forced to click something to check.

The battery door and the battery slot are very precise components.  In fact the battery is hard to remove (the trick is to move it left and right a few times)

The waterproof case has a defect, or rather the case by itself is well built but the gasket is not perfectly aligned with the plastic case.  I doubt it would remain watertight under pressure at diving depths. I made a test in my sink and it works great, but 20 cm of water is not enough to test the full performance at depth.

Menu Overview

The navigation of the Eken H8R camera is intuitive and easy to understand.  It’s divided into two parts: a quick modes part that can be reached just by pressing the “mode” button; and the settings part, where you change all the settings of the camera from the format to the Time lapse. Let me show you these parts:

1. Video – Record Video
2. Photo – Capture a single photo
3. Burst Photo – Shoot 3 photos in a raw
4. Time lapse – Shoot a series of photos at set time intervals
5. VR 360 – Record VR 360 Video

The second menu has this interface:

1. Video Playback
2. Photo Playback
3. Settings

In the settings you can find:

• Video Resolution – 1080p (60FPS), 1080p (30FPS), 2.7K (30FPS), 4K (30FPS)
• Photo Resolution – 12MP (4608×2592), 8MP (3760×2120), 5MP (2976×1672)
• Looping Video – On/Off
• Metering – Center/Multi/Spot
• Time Stamp – Off/Date/Date & Time
• Exposure – 0, ±0.3, ±0.7, ±1.0, ±1.3, ±1.7, ±2.0
• Burst Photo – On (3 photos)
• Time Lapse – 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, 20s, 30s, 60s
• Continuous Lapse – On/Off
• Power Frequency – 50Hz/60Hz/Auto
• Language – Dutch, Hungarian, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Simplified Chinese
  English, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Traditional Chinese
• Date & Time
• Sound Indicator – Shutter (On/Off), Start-up (Off/1/2/3), Beep (On/Off), Volume (0/1/2/3)
• Upside Down – On/Off
• Screen Saver – Off/1min/3min/5min
• Power Saver – Off/1min/3min/5min
• Format
• Reset
• Version

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Video Quality

The Eken H8R can record videos in 1080p @30 and 60FPS, 2.7K @30FPS and 4K @30fps.  The reason it can’t record videos at 720p is a mystery. Before anything else let me warn you that the sensor of this camera is not a real Sony sensor but a fake and is not able to record videos at 4K – the 4K videos are interpolated!

(Interpolated video means that the camera invents pixels to reach a determined resolution but obviously it’s false.)  Moreover the 4K doesn’t really record at 30fps but only 15fps at a double frame rate.  In other words the frames are not 1,2,3,4,5….28,29,30 but 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5…13,13,14,14,15,15.  On the other hand the 2.7K works fine.

The video quality of the Eken is not what I expected. The colors are quite good, maybe too saturated but still true to life, but the sharpness is near zero. As you can see with this screenshot, it’s impossible to read the license plate of the car on front of me even though it’s only 4 to 5 meters distant. I think the compression algorithm is the problem because the photos look great as I’ll show you later.

Videos recorded by the Eken are really bad. Also it has no Gyro stabilization – you can see every movement. As you can see in this video there is a lot of shaking.  It’s partly my doing but you can compare the video below with the Amkov 7000S.

I spent a lot of time with the Eken as a dash camera and noticed that it’s a little bit slow adjusting to a change of brightness.  For example when you exit from a tunnel it takes 2 to 3 seconds before it resets to the best exposure. In backlight conditions it works very well, but in the dark it’s not the best.  In fact as you can see in these videos, there isn’t enough viewing distance to understand what’s going on around you. It’s a little bit better with a fully lit road.

Let me say a couple words about the VR 360 Mode. Why the hell does it exist? No really, it’s just a horrible mode that records videos in 4:4 with a strange resolution (1440×1440) at 30FPS.  The vertical angle of view is noticeably greater than a normal video but that’s it. I leave you with two comparison frames.

Photo Quality

As I said before the photos look great.  It’s strange to make good photos with an action camera because they’re made more for video recording. I compared the Eken’s photos with those of my smartphone and the Eken’s look better! All these photos are 12MP (real 12MP, not interpolated).

As you can see in this photo the resolution and sharpness are very very good.  You can easily zoom in without losing too much detail.

This photo was made in a complete back-light condition and it looks great.

These two photos are made in full light condition.  The colors might lack a bit of saturation.  I noticed that in this condition there is a strange white “veil” all over the photos – like a light haze or fog – possibly a reflection on the lens.

And this is one of the best photos I’ve ever made. It was completely random.

I really love how this camera works shooting photos.

Audio Quality

The audio of a camera is no less important than the video because without good audio even a beautiful video falls flat. The audio of the Eken at low-medium volume is quite good but with a medium-high volume it starts to distort hugely making the camera unusable.

In general the camera captures mostly low frequencies but it misses high frequencies.  This problems is annoying if you want to record a conversation. These three videos are with a low, medium-high and very high volume:

And this is what can you hear in a normal restaurant.  There’s too much low frequency and you can’t hear my order being taken even though I was next to the camera.

Battery and Memory Performance

These are the results of my battery test:

• 4K – 106 Minutes (46Gb)
• 2.7K – 91 Minutes (37Gb)
• 1080p 60FPS – 81 Minutes (13Gb)
• 1080p 30 FPS – 92 Minutes (9Gb)

Recharging Time – I don’t know exactly how much time it takes because the Eken has no recharging indicator, probably it’s about 1-1/2 hours.

Note that the camera can read a maximum 32GB SD card but no larger. I don’t know why Eken made the decision to limit the maximum card size to 32GB.  Personally I think it’s stupid.

WiFi and Remote Control

The Eken H8R like a lot of other cameras has WiFi (with its own app for Android and iOS) and a Wrist Remote Control. I must say that this is the best WiFi connection in a camera I’ve ever had. The Wifi and app are completely perfect!  It has good range, about 3 to 4  meters, and the app is very stable – it never crashed. The app looks like this:

1. Playback Photo/Video
2. Photo Mode
3. Record Video/Shoot Photos
4. Video Mode
5. Options (There is only white balance)

There’s little lag and the app reacts quickly when you touch your smartphone screen.

The remote control is the same as the app – it’s impeccable! Every click results in quick action.

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Summary

The Eken H8R has great WiFi and remote control connections and an incredible amount of accessories.  It also has good battery life for a double screen camera.  It can shoot really good photos with great details but it misses the main point of an action camera: the videos.

The sham claim of 4K at 30fps, the lack of gyro stabilization and the complete absence of details in its videos all mean it misses the mark. You can buy it for about $80 to $100 (around 71€ to 89€) but honestly for this amount of money you can buy something better.

26 August 2016 Update:

They added with a firmware update ( V. 160615LY ) the resolution 720P @120FPS

Where to buy Eken H8R?

Here are few links where you can get this camera :

• Buy it on Amazon
• Buy it on eBay
• Buy it on BangGood

Action camera market is booming. More and more people are becoming interested in tiny, customizable and featherweight recording devices that  can fit your pocket and on top of that provide hell of a fun for semi-professionals and complete newbies.

However, as technology, market, products and customers demands progress, less and less brands seem to be focused on providing a good camera priced below 60$. That is why for people on a extremely tight budget, there seems to be less and less cameras to choose. Everyone are producing something mid-range these days. Even Chinese brands.

So why is H9 by Eken is an interesting camera?

Is it because it shoots videos in full HD at 30 or 60 fps? Is it because it comes action-packed with accessories,has a built in WiFi and a neat 2 inch LCD screen? Or is it maybe due to the fact that it can shoot 4K videos in useless 10 fps?

On paper, Eken appears to be good value for the money. But is it really that good?

The real reason why this camera is interesting is that it provides all these features for a little over $40. Price and options it offers make this device, launched by Chinese brand Eken, quite interesting. At least on a paper.

Update 29/12/2017 I found really good deal on Eken H9 (branded version, newer than the one I reviewed in this article).

So I decided to give it a try. According to specs, it appears to be a perfect choice for newbies. Can this little known brand from Shenzhen create something that can beat famous SJ4000, the most popular affordable GoPro alternative?

Like you, I am so curios to find this out. I have been using Eken H9 for a couple of weeks now, and I am ready to tell you all about it in this review of mine.

[amazon box=”B01LAIBF2M,B07GK18SG3,B01I9FEOL8″ template=”table”]

Eken H9 technical specification

[go_pricing id=”eken_h9″]

As you might have noticed, camera uses the same, OV4689 image sensor as three times more expensive SJ4000+ and M10+ cameras, but has different, quite unknown Sunplus 6630 processing chip, on which there is not much info available.

Video Quality

H9 can shoot videos in these resolutions, fps and bit rates.

• 4K (3840 x 2160) – 10 fps (bit rate 49445kbps)
• 2.7 K (2701 x 1524) – 15 fps (bit rate 49401 kbps)
• 1080p (1920 x 1080) – 60 fps (bit rate 23914 kbps)
• 1080p (1920 x 1080) -30 fps (bit rate 12756kbps)
• 720p (1280 x 720) – 120 fps (bit rate 27521 kbps)
• 720p (1280 x 720) – 60 fps (bit rate 15562 kbps)

If you do not know what a resolution is, its basically the amount of pixels horizontally and vertically aligned that form an image. In theory the higher resolution the better the video clarity is. However for some resolutions it also depends on what kind of equipment are you watching the output.

For example if you are watching 4K video from a high-end couple of thousands camera on a 1080p TV or monitor, guess what? There will be little or no difference at all..

Besides resolution, FPS – frames per seconds are also important. Video is created similar way the photos are. With photo you get a still image, but video captures a motion. In layman’s words FPS is the amount of photos that camera captures in a single second of a video. Most commonly used frame rates are 24, 30 and 60. 30 fps means that in a single second, camera records 30 still images which form 1 second of your video.

Wikipedia provides good starting points if you would like to learn more on frame rate and video resolution.

Okay, since I explained to you resolution and frame rate (FPS), one other important factor is bit rate. Its not that important for newbies, but the higher the bit-rate the more data is being transformed in a second of a video, which means higher quality due to better processing and more storage consumption. Higher bit-rate files will be larger in size.

Let me tell you this in a very simple way. Videos at 10 and 15 FPS are complete crap. Videos look like flip-book, and hence these resolutions are just a way for Eken to attract uninformed people. if you want a 4K action camera, buy something real (GoPro Hero 4 Black or Sony). At those frame rates, Eken, like any other camera is useless.

[amazon box=”B01M14ATO0,B01LYSJB8A” template=”table”]

Even though 4K and 2.7k can make a minor difference in video sharpness at this frames per second in Eken H9 they are unusable. They are just a gibberish marketing talk and you really should not be recording in those resolutions with H9, unless you want to make a 1940s motion films.

If you are interested in raw video samples, you can download them here.

In order to get the best possible shot, a balance between the ISO, aperture and shutterspeed must be achieved. Our friends at photographytalk have created a great guide explaining this exposure triangle, we highly suggest you read it here.

Let me show you few video frames extracted as photos.

Different video resolutions 4k 4K (3840 x 2160) vs 2.7k (2701 x 1524) vs (Full HD 1920 x 1080)300% scaled crop of video frames.

Resolutions you will probably use the are 1920 x 1080 (FULL HD) at 60 or 30 fps. If you intend to use slow motion in your video, shoot at 60 fps, as more frame rates give impression of more realistic and faster movement. 60 frames per second can be slowed down in post production and still look smooth, so if you know how to use video editing software, 60 FPS is a way to go.

For some every day recording, use 30 FPS, as it consumes less memory and battery.

Early evening. Sharpness and focus test. Last two license plate numbers blurred out for privacy protection reasons.

Camera can record while being attached to a power bank, and that is great advantage as well.

Photo Quality

You can download all these images in original uncompressed quality here.

Colors that the image sensor produces are okay for the price, but in some cases it appeared to me that that images looked over-saturated over-sharpened. Colors depend a lot on the light condition and position of the camera. Still, images are decently sharp for 4 megapixels senor and camera focus seems to be set up quite well, so even in distance objects are visible.

When facing a direct sunlight camera does not do that good job. Colors get quite weird and there is a lot of reddish flare. This is where its obvious that lens is not the best one.

By previously having focus problem with cameras, I was pleasantly surprised with H9. Even though photos are only 4 megapixels, they look quite sharp in distance.

If you ever want to do a bit of color-correcting or image cropping in post production, you should know that resolution that Eken H9 has is just not enough for serious photo editing. Resolution is okay for social media sharing though, which is what most of target customers for this camera will do.

In example below, you will notice how details get lost quickly when the photo gets cropped, even by only 4 times.

Crop Test – Eken H9.Crop test low-light.Stadium on a cloudy day.Match day. Camera facing strong artificial light directly.Low light image sharpness test on license plates. Close up.In low light situation camera does not do great, but not that bad either. However if you plan to do lots of videos and photos at night, you probably should consider something else.

[amazon box=”B01LAIBF2M”]

Sound quality

I never expected a low budget camera to have a decent sound. Boy I was wrong. Considering the price of the camera, I found sound quality acceptable. According to metadata in video, camera has stereo microphone inside with a 1938 kbs bitrate.

Audio levels are quite high, maybe even higher than it should be. But you can hear a person talking in front of a camera quite clearly.

This means that if you intend to record concerts though, there is a possibility that music will be hard to hear, as mic is too sensitive for such recordings in my opinion. The only way I tested the audio is talking while recording, and it sound pretty good for the price of the camera.

In my opinion, it is much better than any SJCAM cameras that are way more expensive. Audio quality is in Xiaomi Yi range.

Camera does not support external microphone either, so for professional sound recording, you will need to buy both microphone and sound recorder that supports it.

I am really sorry but I was unable to do any sort of music audio test, as I suck at playing any instrument, though I was pretty darn good on metallophone, at least I thought I was good. If you are a musician and own Eken H9, I would appreciate if you can let me know in the comments your impression on audio quality, and if you have some audio samples, even better.

Packing and accessories

Camera package is quite simple and certainly nothing new. Box looks quite cheaply made, but its not like I was expecting much for $45. On the outside there is obvious similarity with Amkov 5000s and SJ4000 boxes.

Inside the box, you get a camera inside a waterproof case with a base GoPro like mount and a screw in one compartment, where as in other, there is a large number of additional accessories.

Box of Eken H9 contains a camera and lots of additional accessories.

Here is a list of everything you get in the box :

• 1x camera
• 1x waterproof case
• 1x manual
• 1x USB charger, AC Adapter 100-240Vac, output 5V, European plug.
• 1x usb cable
• 1x bicycle/handle/pole mount
• 1x spare (sound-enabling, non-waterproof) case back door
• 1x clip and bracket for mounting the camera on a 1/4″ screw
• 7x different types of mounts
• 1x lens cleaning cloth
• 4x bandages
• 2x helmet mounts

Camera arrives with large amount of additional accessories.

With these mounts, you can mount your camera almost anywhere including a car, boat or on your person.

Design and built quality

Overall design of the camera has zero innovation. Its the same as any other Chinese camera produced this year. Same size, dimensions and shape. The only difference is that compared to some of the competitors, Eken H9 action came has a 2” LCD screen at the back.

Thanks to this 2 inch fella, you can preview your videos and photos and also live-view your recordings as well as change settings inside the camera.

Eken H9 front view

Besides LCD, I really like huge LED indicator button on top of camera. Most of cameras have tiny indicator that sometimes is hard to see. This one is without any doubt the largest and easiest to see. Eken obviously listen to feedback from users on some other cameras and constant complains on LED indicators, so they put this gigantic indicator on top.

This one is not perfect in sunlight either, but way better and easier to see than the most others. It looks a bit ugly though, but you can’t have it all.

Built quality is quite poor. I mean, we have to be realistic here. Its hard to expect awesome built quality for 40-50$, right? Camera feels light weight, which is good, but also a bit cheap. I did not have any issues with it.

It can not be compared to Git 1, Dazzne’s P3 or Xiaomi’s YI when it comes to toughness and craftsmanship. It is more in SJCAM range, which means it is made out of plastic materials with rubberized patterned edges.

Camera is available in 7 different colors from black, blue, yellow, silver, etc.

Dimension and weight

Eken H9 weights around 65 grams with battery inside. Its size is (L*W*H) 59.3 x 24.6 x 41.1 mm.

Buttons and functions

Here is a brief overview of buttons and their functions. This piece has been  extracted from manual.

Operating Modes

Eken H9 can work in 5 different operating modes. Each mode does different thing. Even though their names are pretty self-explanatory, because lots of newbies probably read this, I will go through each of them and try to explain how it works.

To change a mode, just click the “Mode/Power ON button”.

• Video (default)
• Photo
• Burst
• Time-lapse (Self – timer)
• Settings

Different operating modes of Eken H9 camera. From left to right, Video, Photo, Burst and Timelapse.

Video and Photo mode

Video mode is a default mode in which camera works will turned on. Quite obviously, when in video mode, you can record videos by pressing a shutter (OK) button. Video can be stopped by pressing the same button. There is no option to pause video, so once you stop it, camera will create a new video file.

Settings

Settings is an operating mode which will allow you to change different settings. I bet you were not expecting that?

Anyway, comparing it with some other cameras when it comes to features, Eken is in the middle. It has decent amount of options, but not all of them are useful, and the ones that could be useful are not included in the camera.

For instance, I would really like to see a white balance option, ISO or anything similar, but Eken engineers thought LCD screen refresh rate is more important than that.

Now the boring part. Warring, if you do not have a camera, the “Settings” part might bore you to death. I am not joking. But it can at the same time explain some technical stuff and show you what this camera can and cant do.

Video resolution

Inside settings, you can switch through different video res explained in the paragraph above.

• 4K-10 fps
• 2.7 K – 15 fps
• 1080p  – 60 fps
• 1080p  -30 fps
• 720p  – 120 fps
• 720P – 60 fps

Looping video

If you turn the loop recording on, the camera will segment videos in 3 minutes. For example, if you leave your camera to record continuously 30 minutes, you will have 10 videos each lasting 3 minutes (3×10).

Since the option itself is intended for people who want to use Eken H9 as a car (traffic/dash)camera when the memory card is full and camera is recording, it will automatically delete the first video and record over it, overlapping (looping) one video sequence over another. For action camera this is useless feature, and my personal recommendation is to keep it off.

Time Stamp

Time stamp shows date or date and time in the right corner of your video. Most people including myself turn it off, but if you for some weird reason like seeing date and time on your photos and videos, you can enable it.

• OFF
• Date (shows only date)
• Date and Time (shows both date and time)

Exposure

A photograph’s exposure determines how light or dark an image will appear when it’s been captured by your camera. |Source|

If for some reason you want to boost the brightness or darner your footage a bit, you can experiment with these values. positive (plus) values give lighter videos, minus darker.

• 0
• +-0.3
• +-0.7
• +-1.0
• +-1.3
• +-1.7
• +-2.0

Photo resolution

I previously explained the video resolution. Same goes for photos. The higher resolution, the more details and the sharper the photo. If you were not reading carefully the “Photo quality” paragraph of this article, scroll up and read it to understand what is photo interpolation and how is it possible that this camera can shoot 12 megapixels photos when it has 4 megapixels image sensor.

• *12mp (4000 x 3000)
• *8mp (3264 x 2448)
• *5mp (2592 x 1944)
• 4mp (2304 x 1728)

Note : Resolutions marked with “*” indicates interpolated (scaled) resolution.

Burst photo

Burst photo is fun option that will shoot 3 continuous photos when you press shutter button in 1.5 time interval. It is good for sports photography or when you are trying to catch a fast moving object (like me trying to catch a balloon i threw up in air in the photo below).

• 3 photos in 1.5 seconds

While 3 photos in 1.5s is far from impressive speed, it is not that bad either, though if you are moving really fast, images will be blurry.

I am not sure why this option even exists inside the menu, because nothing can be turned off or changed inside Settings>Burst Photo.

Time Lapse and continuous lapse

Everyone loves time-lapse videos. This camera has a time lapse as well. But it is a bit more trickier compared to some other cameras which have this function out of the box. By setting time lapse to particular interval, your camera will shoot photo with a delay. So if you set, 20 seconds, once you press shutter button, camera will take photo 20 seconds after that. So actually this is more like a timer.

In order to enable time lapse, you need to turn “continuous lapse” on. Once you turn that on, camera will take photos each 2-60 seconds continuously one after another, until you stop it or it runs out of battery.

To conclude, there is no video lapse option, which means that time-lapse on this camera will output lots of photos, which you need to combine together in  video editing software to get a video. Not exactly what newbie would like, but these videos are so fun, that I am sure if you are willing to you can learn this in less than 20 minutes, with nearly any tool. There are lots of tutorials online on how to make time lapse.

Do not forget to choose interval in time-lapse (I use 30 sec mostly) and then enable continuous lapse. Change the mode to “timer/time lapse” by pressing mode button few times and press shutter. There you have it. Its not the easiest thing, but I am sure you will get used to it eventually.

Power frequency

Even though it sounds like it has to do something with charging or battery, this is actually a refresh rate of your LCD screen. Just leave it on auto and stop worrying about such unimportant feature.

• 50hz
• 60hz
• Auto

Language

One neat thing about H9 is that it is a polyglot. It “speaks” 16 different languages. For some ridiculous reason mine was set to Turkish on default.

• English
• Simplified and Traditional Chinese
• Italian
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• German
• Dutch
• French
• Czech
• Polish
• Turkish
• Russian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Thai

Sound indicator

• Shutter (on/off) – sound when you press shutter button (works only in photo mode)
• Start up (1/2/3/off) – sound on welcome screen, you can chose from 1-3 levels or turn it off.
• Beep (on/off) – sound inside the menu/settings that can be heard when navigating.
• Volume (beep sound volume (1-4 level/ off)

Eken H9 back view with LCD turned on and LED indicator on top.

Upside down

H9 has image and menu rotation or “upside down” feature. This means that if you rotate the camera and mount it upside down, this option will rotate both menu and output footage so that it looks like it was recorded normally.

• yes/no

Rotates the screen and output footage. Useful if you are mounting the camera upside down, so that you do not have to rotate the footage in post-production.

Screen and power saver

When enabled, these options can turn off the screen (screen saver) after a specified period of inactivity. Power saver turns off the entire camera upon specified time interval, but will not work when camera is recording or taking time-lapse photographs, because its considered as activity. Nobody wants camera to turn off in the middle of recording.

• OFF
• 1/3/5 min

Other

• Date and time – allows you to set time and date that can be shown in date stamp.
• Format – formats memory card (erases all data) – highly recommended when you put the card inside the camera for the first time.
• Reset – reverts all settings to default.
• Version – shows firmware version

Eken H9 Battery performance

The weakest link of H9 when it comes to hardware components is without any doubt a battery. Eken H9 is powered by replaceable 3.7 Li-ion 1050 mAh 3.885 Wh battery. The key word here is replaceable.

Why? Because battery life is so poor that you will probably need few spare batteries and replace original one.

Battery is compatible with 900mAh SJCAM batteries, which leads to a conclusion that 1050mAh advertised is faked. Not only that it is fake, but the original battery proved to be significantly weaker compared to 900mAh.

I tested out battery performance few times, and here is the average recording time I managed to get, with screen saver being turned on, WiFi off and other settings left on default.

• 1920 x 1080p 60 fps – around 45 minutes
• 1920 x 1080p 30 fps – around 83 min

Another keyword is inconsistent.

It is very hard to get exact recording time, since camera behaves quite unpredictable. Even when its fully charged, it will show 80-90%, and will quickly come down to 30-40%. Once you turn camera off, battery indicator goes to 50-60%. Sometimes I got 90 minutes at 30 fps, sometimes I got 70, so above values are average, based on at least 3 battery tests for each resolution and fps.

[amazon fields=“B01LAIBF2M” value=“thumb” image_size=“large”]

[amazon fields=“B01LAIBF2M” value=“button”]

I am not quite sure if this was just a problem with my battery, but I read that few more users were complaining on performance of original, 1050mah battery.

Using SJCAM batteries on Eken H9

Seeing how consistent and weak the 1050 mAh battery is, I inserted 900mah battery from SJCAM, as they are the same size.  To my surprise, not only that the battery meter remained more stable, but I also got way better recording performance by using “weaker” battery on paper.

Results with 900mah battery

Recording time :

• 1920 x 1080p 60 fps – around 70 minutes (35 more compared to original battery)
• 1920 x 1080p 30 fps – around 120 min (40 minutes more than with original battery)

Now these are not perfect results, but certainly far more acceptable.

My advice is to reinforce the original battery capacity that comes with a camera by buying at least 2 spare batteries, or if you do not mind carrying a power bank around, that is also a great way to extend recording time.

I use this power bank and it allows me up to 4-5 charges of my cameras, phones, etc. You can also get any other, as they all do the same job, the only different thing is capacity. And yes, you can record and take photos while the camera is connected to external power source such as power bank or car charger.

Battery is one of the cons of Eken H9 due to its poor performance. Luckily camera is compatible with 900mAh by SJCAM, which give 40% more recording time compared to original.

Customer Support – Knock, knock, anybody out there?

Even a dirty cheap products need to have a customer support. To be honest with you with Chinese brands, I never set my expectations bar too high for after-sale assistance.

But my experience with Eken is one of the worst I have ever experienced.

Even though you can get support from retailer from China as well, I always go with manufacturer directly, just to test the waters and see how they threat their customers. I sent 3 emails to Eken with from different accounts with different technical questions.

4 weeks later and I still have not received a reply from them.

That is unbelievable. Terrible and disgusting.

They only seam to care about their sale volume. Okay, I completely understand that they are new brand to the market, but the complete lack of customers support is inexcusable. I also added them on Skype and asked similar questions, but never ever have I received a reply.

If you ever need a technical assistance from Eken, do not count on it. Its not because they do not know English, or do not reply promptly, it is because they do not give a damn about replying.

What is even funnier is that here is what Eken claims on their about page :

Eken truly believes that long-term customer satisfaction is the foundation of our success.

Well either they completely misunderstood the word “satisfaction” or they are shamelessly lying. I will leave that one on you to decide.

Firmware updates

One thing that worries me more than lack of customer supports is lack of firmware updates. While I have not encountered any serious bugs with this camera, it is quite normal that a product has its own firmware page where users can download latest software that will improve the camera based on customers feedback.

Unfortunately on manufacturer site, at the time of writing this review I did not see a firmware list. I am really hopping they will not forget about upgrading firmware and improving the camera at least in the next few months.

I guess it all comes down to, you get what you pay for. With Eken you get camera that is great overall value for the money, but it appears they are decreasing their cost on customer support, and that is not the way you do business.

If you ever have any issues with the camera, you probably need to rely on communities and online forums and try to fix it yourself with the help of good people (trust me there are many many great people willing to help in this virtual world of ours). Also, you can always leave a comment here, and if I can, I will be happy to help.

Final Eken H9 Summary

Before I tell you my final judgment on this camera, I would like to tell you something first.

Final judgement

Most important factor when I review a product is how much value it offers for the price? With this in mind, I will now summarize my opinion on Eken H9.

Considering the insane low price of 40-50$, in my humble opinion Eken H9 is great value for the money camera. Even if it cost 70$ I would still recommend it as probably the best low-budget camera.

It has its own pros and cons, so lets go through them quickly.

Pros

First and most important advantage of Eken H9 camera is its price. At the moment of writing this review, camera can be bought from various online retailers at 45-60$ price range. That in my opinion is amazing price for what this camera offers. Besides price, I also liked the 60 fps option in full HD. I did not find 4K and 2.7k useful at all, due to their low frame rates, for me they were unusable.

For me personally it is important to live preview what I am recording. Thanks to quite big 2 inch LCD that camera has it is very easy to both navigate through the menu and see what you are photographing.

One more thing that I found appealing is quite large LED indicator located next to a shutter button on top. It flashes red while you are recording, and because of its size, you can always know if the camera is recording or not. When you stop recording, there is no sound however, so I always had to double-check if I stopped the video recording or not.

Video quality in my opinion was quite decent. Even though camera did not do that good job when facing the direct sunlight and in low-light, in pretty much all other situations it was even beyond my expectations.

Photo quality is quite sharp and focus is set up perfectly considering the price. Colors on photo and video are a bit saturated, but the contrast was quite good. Camera comes action-packed with lots of additional accessories and manual is not that bad either.

What surprised me the most is the volume of audio, which was very good.

• Affordable price
• Great overall value for the money
• 60 FPS in full HD
• LCD screen
• Large LED indicator
• Decent video quality considering the price
• Decent photo quality considering the price
• Good audio quality

Cons

Built quality is not something Eken H9 can be proud of. I do not like that their main selling point is “4K action camera”. I mean, it is 4K camera, but it can only shoot 4k in 10 FPS, which is ridiculous. Videos look like flip-book and I really can not understand how anyone can record videos that are not smooth, especially fast-paced videos make no sense in 10 frames per second. Same goes for 2.7k in 15 fps.

Battery life is quite poor, and I am under impression that the battery capacity is not 1050mah as stated in specs. Good news is that H9 is compatible with SJCAM 900mah batteries, so its highly recommended that you get at least one or two spare ones. They are quite cheap, and they will give you better battery performance.

Manufacturer declared that  camera can take up to 12 megapixels stills, but this is just interpolation. The true resolution of images is 4mp, since the image sensor inside the camera is a 4 megapixels sensor. Quite deceptive behavior, but plenty of Chinese brands do this lately. This is not an excuse however.

There is no right out of the box, video time lapse, so if you are not tech-savvy, you will need to learn how to create time lapse videos out of photos.

The biggest disadvantage in my opinion, is a complete lack of support.

• Not the best built quality
• 4K is not usable in given frame rates (15 FPS)
• Interpolated image size (Manufacturer states 12MP when it’s actually 4MP)
• There is no right out of the box time lapse
• Battery life is poor

Conclusion

Overall, Eken H9 might not be the best built and supported camera on the market, nor have the best image or video quality, but for overall value for the price of 50$ is incredible. I would recommend this camera to people who are newbies to action cams or users on an extremely tight budget.

If you are not sure if action cam is what you really need, you can get H9 and play with it, see how action cam works and what can be done with it. Because of decent video quality and photos and tons of accessories, I am sure Eken H9 can be an interesting gift your children or grandson. Its cheap, so if it breaks, who cares, right?

A bit more advanced users will probably not find it interesting enough due to the lack of advanced features.

You can also take a look at other action cameras I reviewed, if this one does not suit your needs.

Where to buy Eken H9?

Here are some links where you can get this camera.

• |Buy it from Official Eken Store on Amazon|
• |Buy it from Authorized Eken seller on AliExpress|
• |Buy it now BangGood|

Questions

I hope this review of Eken H9 helped you while evaluating if its good for you or not. If you have any question regarding H9, feel free to leave a comment below, I would love to help you out. If you already have Eken H9, please let me know how it works for you and what is your experience with it, what you liked and what you didn’t like?

 I found really good deal on Eken H9 (branded version, newer than the one I reviewed in this article).

Let me introduce you to Eken H6s – one of the recent action cams released by EKEN. The Chinese manufacturer has been around for a while. They established their reputation with H9 model which was one of our best cheap action camera picks. That particular model made the company famous and increased their sales substantially.

In this review, I will be taking a look at the H6s from a bit different perspective.

First I want to tell you is that EKEN just replaced the V series with the H series. After the recently reviewed Eken V8s, they launched this model, the H6s. As per curious coincidence, H6s is the direct sister of  V8s, because both have almost the same hardware.

As mentioned, due to an incredible amount of similarities between the two models, I will be comparing these throughout this article quite a lot. It’s not entirely clear to me why they released this model with only minor cosmetic design changes and launched it as a completely new camera under a different name.

But more importantly, let’s see what this camera can do.

Technical Specification

In order to judge the technical specs of the product, take a look at the table below.

[go_pricing id=”eken_h6s”]

As you can see from the table, the camera is just slightly different from its predecessor. The only difference in hardware is in its image sensor being changed.

Unboxing

Accessories

Here is a list of accessories which come included in the camera package:

• 1x Camera with battery
• 1x Waterproof case
• 1x Tripod
• 1x Plastic Frame
• 2x Clip mount
• 2x 3M mount stickers
• 3x Screw mount
• 1x Handlebar mount
• 1x Remote Control
• 1x USB cable
• 1x Manual

It is quite common that a Chinese action camera brand includes plenty of additional accessories with the product. Quality of these additional mounts and frames can be questionable, depending upon the brand. The accessories included with Eken H6s are of good quality.

One thing I really like about Eken accessories is the fact that they began including a tripod as an accessory which comes in the package. That small addition makes this whole package quite complete, and will satisfy most of the needs of an average action camera enthusiast.

As you can see in a photo above, the package also includes a splash-proof remote control unit. The remote control will give you certain camera control. Pair it with a camera, and you will be able to perform basic operations, like recording a video or capturing a still image.

One more great accessory is the frame which allows you to attach a camera to a 1/4″ screw. In the photo above you can see how I used the frame to attach the camera to a tripod.

There is one problem with the frame. It does not have a hole for a USB cable. Which means that you will not be able to charge the camera when it’s inside a frame. This can be a problem for people capturing long time-lapse videos, where their camera needs to remain still and being charged at the same time.

Users can drill such a hole, of course, but I really do not understand how they “forgot” to provide a hole in the frame. It can’t be that expensive to do it, can it?

Design and Build quality

Well, the accessories are of a good quality – not so the camera itself. To the touch, it appears to have been made from the cheapest plastic on the market! It is also very light, feels almost empty. The color doesn’t help much with raising the enthusiasm, being kinda nondescript gray.

The buttons quality is good. Unfortunately there are only three of those, so at first, navigating the Menu you might find it a little bit confusing. Both monitors are clearly visible, also in the sunlight, but EKEN didn’t remember to include signal LEDs around their cameras. And that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to determine whether the camera is recording or not!

I felt forced to look at either of the two screens, and if I use the cam on my helmet, it’s pure lottery to know whether it is working or not. After few hours of usage, I found that the front screen always remains turned on! There is no option to turn it off, and it spells bad news for the battery life. Not good concept! This can possibly be fixed via future firmware upgrade.

Menu Overview

As I already grumbled before, the Menu is a little bit quizzical. With only 3 buttons you can just select a certain option with “record button”, and Scroll down the list only with the “power” button. This sure is neither the best nor the quickest way to move around, but “fortunately” the Menu only offers a few settings anyway, so…

The first part of the menu is composed of quick modes, in this order:

• Burst
• Time Lapse Video
• Time Lapse Photo
• Video Playback
• Photo Playback
• Settings

In the Settings, we find the Main Menu, consisting of:

• Video Resolution: 4K 30/25fps – 2.7K 30fps – 1080p 30/60fps
• Photo Resolution: 14Mp (4320 x 3248)
• Video Interval: 1min/5min
• Looping Video: On/Off
• Time Stamp: Off/Date/Date&Time
• Exposure Value: +2.0/+1.7/+1.3/+1.0/+0.7/+0.3/0.0/-0.3/-0.7/-1.0/-1.7/-2.0
• Burst Mode: 3photos/1s – 7photos/2s – 15photos/4s
• Time Lapse Photo Interval: 3s/5s/10s/30s/60s
• Time Lapse Photo: On/Off
• Time Lapse Video Resolution: 4k/2.7K
• Time Lapse Video Interval: 500ms/1s/2s/3s/4s/5s/10s/15s/20s/30s/60s
• Power Frequency: 50Hz/60Hz/Auto
• Language: English / Traditional Chinese / Italian / Spanish / Portuguese / German / Dutch / French / Czech / Polish / Turkish / Russian / Japanese / Korean / Thai / Simplified Chinese / Finnish / Danish / Swedish / Norwegian / Hungarian / Slovakian / Greek
• Remote Control: On/Off
• Date & Time
• Sound Indicator
• Screen Saver: Off/1min/3min/5min
• Power Saver: Off/1min/3min/5min
• Format
• Reset
• Version:  (current Firmware being H6s STD_EKBK 20171030)

Overall, the Menu is quite easy to understand but I think it is too skinny. Probably it is only my impression, but there you are.

Video Quality

Prior to this model, I had other Eken cams; the H8R and the V8s, and so I can assure you that NOTHING has changed with this camera. The V8s had its lot of problems – and these are still in this model.

I do not need any further evidence that Eken didn’t make much progress with this model in terms of video quality. There’s zero progress in the software. The only hardware change is an image sensor, but in my test, it does not bring any performance improvements.

It seems to me that they did not invest much effort in this model. Everything is the same as in the previous series, except for some design and image sensor changes.

As always, I leave you to see for yourself by way of videos made at 1080p / 60fps, which for now is the most used resolution with almost all action cams.

And in the night, video quality becomes quite poor.

I don’t think you’d need any better-detailed comments, as it is clear that the camera suffers from a very very low-quality virus. If we take the car videos as examples, I couldn’t even read the license plate of the car in front of me! Honestly, I think it’s ridiculous.

The colors are quite good, but the rest is… well, uncommentable. Videos are neither clear nor sharp enough for the high standards the action camera market expects today.

Photo Quality

The photo quality is a little bit better. If you crop the images severely, obviously these are not super detailed. Colors are good and it can manage the light levels well. Unfortunately, this is not only a photo camera. It’s not made for just this purpose, but it can still deliver some acceptable images. Here are several examples:

Audio Quality

The sample camera I received had a “deafect”. Accidentally or not, my unit did not provide any sound output. I was unable to discover whether this is a hardware defect or a software bug. I contacted EKEN support, but after the first e-mail, nobody replied. If I get a reply from EKEN about the sound issue with this unit, I’ll update this part of the article.

Furthermore, I am unable to tell you whether this is an issue with my unit, or it happens with larger percentage of the H6s cameras. If you bought a H6s, please add your comment on the issue. It would be very helpful to know if it’s only a singular unit defect – or a serial glitch.

WiFi and App

This camera is provided with a built-in WiFi, so you can operate the camera using your smartphone. The range is quite good, about 3 or 4 meters. Should be enough to use in many situations. This connection is used only for Rec, Playback and Mode buttons – it has no more features. The app is maybe too unstable. Sometimes it will crash, and it’s not exactly the icon of speed, but it helps to change the settings without touching the camera.

Remote Control

One of the good things about Eken H6s is that they add a Remote Control device to their range of accessories. The RC could be very useful if you have the camera mounted in some position uncomfortable to reach. Also good, you can use it in the rain because it is splashproof – but do not take it along for a swim. By the way, the signal range is about 2 to 3 meters, and within said distance it is accurate.

Battery Performance

These are the results of the battery tests I’ve made:

• 4K 30fps – 46 minutes (filesize 19,2Gb)
• 4K 25 fps EIS – 40 minutes (filesize 18,1Gb)
• 2.5K 30fps EIS – 70 minutes (filesize 14,4Gb)
• 1080p 60fps EIS – 81 minutes (filesize 17,6 Gb)
• 1080p 30fps EIS – 140 minutes (filesize 11,5Gb)

It takes about 130 minutes to recharge the completely flat battery. Which has quite a poor life as it is.

Summary

Frankly, I don’t know what the problem with EKEN is. It is a big company and they are trying to get on top of the market with, I think, new cameras. And yet, they are just making the same cameras with another name. It may be a good thing that these cameras are cheaper than other brands, but the performances are absolutely humble.

I can’t honestly find enough reasons to convince you to buy an Eken V6s cam. This was supposed to be an action cam! Everyone knows that such type of cameras is (or should be) built to work in extreme situations,  but EKEN stubbornly strives to create a poor product.

Horrible video resolution, battery life lower than the average, flat uninteresting design, and deficiencies in every other aspect. And I don’t want to talk about the software… it seems a pre-compiled list glued into their products. Is there any need to even mention the complete absence of audio (input or output) in my review unit?

I wish the next EKEN camera will strongly show a better care for details and bring improvements. Meanwhile, check our recommended action camera list here.

Pros:

Cons:

Lately, there have been plenty of affordable action camera models on the market. However, only a handful of those has video stabilization in 4K mode. In this review, I take a look at Eken V8s action camera.

Eken has been on the market for a while now. Their most popular model Eken H9 quickly became one of the best cheap action cameras, and took the market by storm. Besides the EIS in native 4K resolution, this sports camera has other interesting features such as dual screen and the remote control support.

In this article, I test the Eken V8s. I put the camera on performance, video, audio, image quality, usability, and reliability.

So let’s see how Eken V8s performs and did it pass my tests.

Discount: Use coupon 8F7ZHTUJ to save 8$ on Eken V8S on Amazon.

Specifications

Take a look at product technical specs before I show you what’s inside that beautiful box.

[go_pricing id=”eken_v8s”]

Unboxing

Take a look at my unboxing video to see what you get inside the Eken V8S box.

Accessories

Here’s a list of accessories included :

• 1x Camera with battery
• 1x Waterproof case
• 1x Tripod
• 1x Plastic Frame
• 2x Clip mount
• 2x Screw 3M mount
• 3x Screw mount
• 1x Handlebar mount
• 1x Remote Control
• 1x Wall charger (1.5mAh)
• 1x USB cable

I was amazed at the quality of these accessories because they are not the classic basic accessories delivered with all the other cameras. Eken put more care into creating those, and this is easily noticeable. Also, the quality of the box itself is pretty good!

It is not very common to receive a tripod as an accessory with an action camera. I found a tripod as an accessory only once, when I reviewed the Elephone 360 camera. Most of the electronics manufacturers avoid the cost of adding a wall charger, and send you just an USB cable. Eken includes the charger.

Just two words about these two accessories: The wall charger is a 1.5mAh and it works great, the tripod is 10cm high, very stable and light to carry. Good thinking, Eken!

Design And Build Quality

Design of the Eken V8s is not much different than that of the most of action cameras we review here at Pevly. Standard rectangular shape. The front of the camera appears to be made out of the metal, but it’s not. The rest of the camera surface has anti-slide scrimshaw.

The camera itself is quite simple looking and has only 3 buttons: Power/Mode, Wifi, and Rec. While it looks simplistic, it can be quite a daunting experience to browse the menu, which I will show you in the menu overview paragraph.

The buttons are quite bulky which makes them easy to feel under your fingers, even with the gloves on.

One of the first things I noticed is that this camera has no LCD status indicators and I can’t really comprehend why. Simply said, without checking out one of the screens you do not know whether the camera is recording or not, and neither if it is charging.

Another thing is that Eken V8s does not have an incorporated 1/4″ screw mount. With that kind of bushing, the camera could be easily attached to a tripod or any sort of accessory. So what does that practically mean? Not having the 1/4″ bushing on the camera means you will always have to use a frame to mount your camera onto a tripod.

Menu Overview

The camera interface came as a surprise. I mentioned above that with only 3 buttons you can just select (with “rec button”) and scroll ONLY down the list (with the “power” button). This is very slow and nerve-stretching. Luckily the user interface of the menu is very lean and simplistic, which somehow compensates for this two-button navigation.

The standard on-screen menu is composed of standard parts. The first part contains the quick modes, in the following order:

• Video Mode
• Photo Mode
• Photo Burst
• Photo Time Lapse

The second part has:

• Video Playback
• Photo Playback
• Settings

Well, in settings section we can find only:

• Video Resolution – 4K 25fps / 2.7K 30fps / 1080px 60/30fps
• Photo Resolution – 14M (This is the only available resolution)
• Video Interval – 1/5 min (Loop Recording)
• Loop Video – On/Off (Once the memory is full the camera overwrites the first videos)
• Time Stamp
• Exposure – +-0/ +-0.3/ 0.7/ +-1.0/ +-1.3/ +-1.7/ +-2.0
• Burst Mode – 3photos/1s, 7photos/2s, 15photos/4s, 30photos/8s
• Time Lapse Photo Interval – 3s/5s/10s/30s
• Time Lapse Photo – On/Off
• Time Lapse Video Resolution – 4K 30fps/ 2.7K 30fps
• Time Lapse Video Interval – 500ms/1s/2s/3s/4s/5s/10s/15s/20s/30s/60s
• Time Lapse Video – On/Off
• Power Frequency – 50Hz/60Hz/Auto
• Language
• Remote Control – On/Off
• Date & Time
• Sound Indicator – Shutter (On/Off), Start up (1/2/3/None), Beep (On/Off), Volume (0/1/2/3)
• Screen Saver – Off/1min/2min/3min/5min
• Power saver – Off/1min/3min/5min
• Format
• Reset
• Version – V8s_v3.0 STD_EKTH 20170628

Take a look the settings walkthrough in a gif animation below.

Obviously, the manufacturer will have to further optimize the menu since it has some quite confusing options. It is more than obvious that the menu is simple, but there are some things which were quite frustrating for me personally.

First of all, you are not able to turn off the Electronic Image Stabilization. Secondly, the camera has only 3 video resolutions with a maximum of 60 frames per second, which means that making serious slow motion videos with this camera won’t be possible.

Funny thing is that there is a photo resolution option inside the menu, but you can select only the default 14 megapixels. It ruins the user experience, unless the next firmware update adds some meaningful change.

Video Quality

Ok, this is embarrassing but I have to say it. When it comes to video quality. this camera is one of the weakest I ever tested. My previous Eken camera, the H8R, did not have the superb quality of the video but it was acceptable. Not so with this model.

Before talking about the video quality I want you to know that usually all the tests in my reviews are done in 1080p at 60fps because it is the most used resolution. With this camera, the 1080p resolution is really crappy! Forgive this term, but it simply fits!

In a 4K resolution the quality of the video is better, but in order to stay consistent with my testing methods, let’s see how the Eken V8s performs in 1080p.

The quality is very bad, and with the EIS on, the cam’s 170° field of view is narrowed down to ~100°. And as I said, there is no way to turn the stabilization off. At this point, I don’t know what to say, so I’ll let the videos talk.

This is the difference between 1080p and 4K videos:

Comparison between two frames from a 1080p and 4K videos:

Original frames

The major problem in resolutions lower than 4K is the lack of details and sharpness. Additionally the exposure is not well adjusted. It is fairly hard to comprehend why the camera behaves inconsistently in different resolution. The quality of the 4K video is better compared to lower resolution outputs. Contrarily, the videos in time-lapse mode are quite good. Take a look at the sample below.

In the night this camera can capture a lot of light, and for this fact it is better than majority of other cameras in this price range – but the quality still remains rather poor.

As you have surely noticed, in these images there is a lot of wakes further reducing the quality.

The only thing that works well is the EIS because it is well-made. Even though the EIS works great in terms of video stabilization, sometimes it gets laggy.

WARNING – Don’t use this camera while it is recharging because it could melt down! Also, it reaches high temperature while recording; be careful.

In fact, I had to hit it with full power A/C airstream when I used it as a dashcam.

Photo Quality

Quality of the photos is a little bit better than video, but with a 100% crop, you will find out that the photos appear like paintings with a very low amount of details. This usually hints at too much denoising, which probably originates from the algorithm counteracting the effects of hot sensor.

What I want to say is that the camera electronics is simply overburdened. The EIS in 4K probably puts too much “pressure” on the sensor and the processor, causing inferior video and photo quality. It probably also influences the excessive heating. But there could also be a swatch of different reasons.

The colors and saturation  are better in photos compared to videos, but with a little crop you will find out that the quality reminds one of painting. Imagine the image on a canvas. Once you look at it closer, you’ll see the artist’s strokes / artifacts. This is quite similar to the quality of the Eken V8s images, once slightly zoomed-in, there are weird artifacts there, and it just isn’t sharp enough.

Audio Quality

Oh yeah, the audio. I almost forgot about that because every time I needed to check some videos from this camera I removed my headphones – for hearing safety. Good luck, if you want to check the following two videos:

You don’t need me to understand that the audio is not good at all. Everything seems muffled, and with the high volume, especially in low frequencies, the distortion is incredibly strong. A normal speech can easily imitate sounds of someone gagged.

WiFi and the App

Eken V8s has a built in WiFi which means you can operate the camera remotely via your smarthpone. The app interface is very simple.

The connection and the app is made just of a Rec, Playback and Mode buttons. Nothing more. Oh yes, there is also the resolution setting, but most of the times it doesn’t work… The app is useful just to access the cam easier, but there’s nothing more to it.

Remote Control

The remote control of this camera is one of a few things that actually works good. Its range is about 2-3 meters. The buttons respond perfectly to the click. It is also splashproof, which means it will be resistant to some occasional water drops, but you can’t dive with it.

Battery Performance

These are the results of my battery tests:

• 4K 25fps – 58 minutes (28Gb)
• 2.7K 30fps – 61 minutes (11,5Gb)
• 1080p 60fps – 65 minutes (13,8Gb)
• 1080p 30fps – 63 minutes (8,6Gb)

It’s not easy to exactly measure how much time the camera takes to reach a full battery charge because there are no indicators, but I think it is about 3 and a half hours.

Summary

It is really hard to say what went wrong with the v8S. My personal belief is that Eken wanted to get too much from the hardware and that resulted in overload of the processor and the sensor, which in turn caused the overheating, reduced photo quality, etc.

Furthermore, I do not understand some of the decisions they made regarding the inability of turning EIS off, not having enough resolution and FPS choice. Even though camera supports WiFi and has a remote controller, the audio quality remains poor.

The design and build quality are quite decent, and 4K stabilization works well most of the times.

My personal conclusion is that for the retail price of the Eken v8S you should consider something else. Take a look at our list of best action cameras. 

Having stabilized 4K is not something that many brands managed to do, excepting Sony and YI Technology. But those cameras cost three times the Eken v8S. Conclusion is that in order to have EIS correctly perform in 4K, a better hardware is required. Eken tried to create something cheaper and we give them credits for that, but the results were just not good enough in our opinion. This does not mean that their next model won’t do good. We are looking forward to see what’s next in store for Eken.

However, if you decide that the Eken v8S is something you’d like to buy, check out their official store on Amazon.

Discount: Use coupon 8F7ZHTUJ to save 8$ on Eken V8S on Amazon.

Pros

Cons