Price: R1500
Verdict: Good for the money.

The Camileo S20 doesn’t promise the world, but delivers on what it does claim: a simple, affordable digital video camera. And at R1500 it is hard to argue over price.

The 5 megapixel S20 takes videos and still pictures, and allows you to upload videos from the camera straight to Google’s YouTube video service, although it does have to be connected to your computer for the latter which sort of negates its usefulness.

The S20 has no flash, but rather a little light that can be turned on or off on the front of the camera that is surprisingly bright but doesn’t make much of a difference unless you’re shooting something a metre or two in front of you.

To upload videos to YouTube software must first be installed on your computer (Windows only) and you then hit a button on the camera while in playback mode to launch the application and upload the video. Since it’s connected to your PC anyway you could just upload video to the YouTube website directly, so this is a pointless feature designed just to get the YouTube logo on the box.

The S20 shoots in 1080p high definition video and I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Pictures taken with the camera are so-so but video is very good and audio is far better than I expected it would be.

Buyers beware, however, that the S20 has a tiny internal storage capacity and doesn’t come with an SD card. So unless you’re happy with a handful of pictures and a few a seconds of video you will have to buy an SD memory card too. Luckily these are cheap and getting cheaper.

While it doesn’t come with a memory card, the S20 does have just about anything else you could need in the box – even a tiny tripod to prop it up on tables. It includes an HDMI cable too, as well as a charger, USB cable, spare lanyard and cleaning cloth. No pouch though.

The interface on the S20 is very simple to use and the swivel-monitor makes it easy to shoot anything, even yourself. Picture quality on the tiny monitor is aweful, but the finished product looks great, so who cares?

For YouTubers this is a decent camera and most of its shortcomings are forgotten when the price is factored in.

Specs

• H.264 video (1080p)
• 5MP digital still camera
• 4x digital zoom
• HDMI, Mini USB 2.0 & AV output
• 3.0” TFT LCD monitor
• SD/SDHC card reader
• Video stabilisation (at 720p resolution)
• Motion detection
• Rechargeable Li-Ion battery