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Owle Bubo Review: For Hardcore iPhone Videographers
Owle Bubo isn't an obscure Star Wars bounty hunter. It's a $130 billet aluminum iPhone case, complete with swappable 37mm macro lens. It's well-made, attractive, and makes iPhone video easy. But you probably don't want this one. Products like the Bubo confuse my little retail suggestion brain. For some of you, $130 is a pittance to get a sturdy case with four female tripod mounts, a cold shoe for lights and microphones, and two comfortable handles that steady up your iPhone videography.
For others, $130 is nearly the price you paid for the phone itself—or the price of a decent Kodak or Flip video camera.
So Much Right
Let's start with what Owle gets right: The design—from packaging, to the physical feel of the Bubo in your hands, to the friendly instruction manual complete with jokes about Perez Hilton)—is excellent, especially considering it's Owle's first product.
The cool metal feels wonderful in your hands. The mounting points allow for nearly any combination of accessories, a quality I'd love to see emulated by other cameras and rail systems. (Consider that even most pro video cameras have a single tripod mount and a single hotshoe.)
Video quality is improved over the iPhone 3GS's default, simply by dint of the large glass lens that rests over the iPhone's sensor. It adds a slight fisheye effect, but one that is generally welcome, alleviating the typical claustrophobic feel of iPhone video.
Video Testing
But is it over a hundred dollars worth of improvement? Depends. Below I've embedded Owle's video they shot during CES that shows a side-by-side comparison of video with and without the Bubo.
Pretty good, right? Well, below are two videos I shot within seconds of each other of a mossy rock and then uploaded straight to Vimeo. Frankly, besides the wider lens and slight difference in sharpness, I'm hard pressed to see anything profoundly different.
So fine. It's better with Bubo, for sure, but not much. You can't judge the Owle Bubo without remembering that the power of its camera isn't that it's particularly high-quality, but that it's wedded to a phone with hundreds and hundreds of useful, fascinating apps that extend its capabilities to a fantastic degree. (It's hilariously true to say the iPhone is the most powerful camera in the world—if you discount image quality.)
Yet There Was A But
But a couple of things about the Bubo make me wary to recommend it quite yet.
It's heavy. Heavier than the iPhone on its own, certainly. Heavier than many "real" camcorders I've used. According to the box it shipped in—there's no weight information on Owle's website—it's just under two pounds before you put the iPhone in or mount any lights or microphones. On my light Manfrotto tripod, it kind of made it want to lean a little, although if everything was tightened properly it seemed to be fine. No big deal, but for handheld shots I could see it getting tiring. (Then again, all cameras are tiring after a while.)
The system for holding the iPhone in place scares me, too. You're forced to put your iPhone in a rubberized case. (One was included with my test sample, but several others from major case manufacturers are supported.) Then you jam that case into the back of the Bubo where it is held in place by tension alone. I never once had an issue where my iPhone started to slip out, but still...it's a bit scary. A simple flip-down tab would go a long way toward appeasing my fear of seeing the heart of my camera system go clattering to the concrete.
Finally: price. It's not too expensive for its level of quality—solid hunks of aluminum aren't cheap—but it does take it out of impulse purchase territory for most, which is a pity. A planned composite (read: plastic) version is in the works which Owle expects to sell for around $70. Considering the optics and tripod mounts will still be the same quality as the Bubo's, that seems like a fair price.
One final niggle I'd like to see improved in future versions: It would be nice to see a divot in the bottom tripod mounts for stabilizing pins, common on most tripods. That would help prevent the Bubo from potentially spinning itself out of the tripod screw during all-day use.
Appealing design that looks like it came from Night Owl's lab
Turns the iPhone into nearly any sort of recording rig you can dream up
Improves video and imaging quality, if even slightly
Expensive
Heavy
iPhone mounting system seems iffy
Send an email to Joel Johnson, the author of this post, at joel@gizmodo.com.
As I walked into San Francisco's Yerbe Buena Center Wednesday for the Apple iPad unveiling, I pretty much expected Steve Jobs to announce a tablet computer optimized for video, web surfing, reading, music and game playing that runs iPhone applications. And that's exactly what I got. But I also expected something more. I expected to be delighted with some not-so-obvious features that would make me crave the device.
I was underwhelmed.
It's not that there's anything wrong with the iPad. It's a pretty good product with some nice features, but I don't agree with Steve Jobs' claim that it's "magical and revolutionary."
True, it can run any iPhone application but -- obviously -- so can an iPhone and an iPod touch. Had they called it the "iTouch-2" I would have considered it an excellent evolution to an already great product.
One thing I don't like about iPad apps is that, like the iPhone and iPod Touch, apps will have to be sanctioned by Apple. I would prefer to see an open platform like Windows or Mac that allows anyone to create an application. I can sort of understand controlling apps that run on a phone but not on general computing devices which, at the end-of-the-day is what the iPad will be competing with.
In announcing the iPad, Apple is trying to create a third category of devices somewhere in between a smartphone and a laptop but the problem with the iPad is that it doesn't do anything that you can't already do with a smartphone and a laptop. In terms of raw innovation I was actually more impressed with the IdeaPad U1 hybrid laptop that Lenovo introduced at CES. It's a traditional laptop with the ability to peel off the screen to use it as a tablet. They won't sell a lot but it is a radical design with two operating systems and user interfaces -- Windows 7 for laptop mode and another when it's used as a tablet.
Some bright spots
There were some bright spots. In addition to its ability to run any iPhone and iPod Touch application, Apple has released an iPad Software Developer Kit to encourage developers to create applications specifically designed for the device's larger screen. And Apple jump started development with its new iWork suite that lets you use the iPad for word processing, spreadsheets and to create and show presentations.
I'm also glad that Apple is releasing an external keyboard but I would have been happier if there were a USB port so users could use any keyboard or pointing device and plug in other industry standard accessories including external hard drives or at least thumb drives. It would also have been nice if the operating system allowed more than one application to run at a time - something that PC and Mac users have been able to do for years.
Cheaper than expected, but not cheap
Jobs made a big deal about the low price and, indeed the starting price of $499 is less than most people expected. But for that you get an iPad with only 16 gigabytes of storage and no 3G modem. If you want the fully decked out model, it will cost you $829. That's still less than the $999 some people expected, but for about $400 you can get a netbook that does everything the iPad does, albeit without the panache.
The one pleasant surprise of the day was Jobs' announcement that the 3G model will feature contract-free AT&T data plans that start at $14.99 for 250 megabytes a month or $29.99 for unlimited data. That unlimited plan is half the price of most other data plans. My hope is that Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile will counter by cutting the price of their data plans for other computing devices. My only worry is that if the iPad is a success, it could further overwhelm AT&T's already clogged data network.
Not a game changer
The iPhone was a revolutionary device because it was the first easy-to-use powerful computer that you can put in your pocket. But, even though it's a bit thinner and lighter than other personal computing devices, the iPad is far from pocket-sized. It's basically a laptop without a physical keyboard that runs iPhone apps. That makes it an interesting product but hardly one that will change the world.
I'm not saying the iPad will fail - there may indeed be a market for the device, but it's not a game changer.
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