RCA EZ101 Small Wonder Camcorder Review

Posted on October 26th, 2008

RCA EZ101 Small Wonder Camcorder Description

• 30 Minutes Built-In Recording Time
• High-speed USB connection
• Uses 2 AA Batteries Built-in easy Software
• Camcorder comes full with integrated software in memory.
• Simple software allows you to download video through high-speed USB connection and email video clips to family and friends.
• Activates automatically when camcorder is connected Convenient USB Arm – Allows fast connection to PC for easy viewing or downloading of video clips
• Simple Downloading – Convenient USB arm allows quick connect to PC or laptop for easy viewing and archiving of video clips
• No Computer necessary – Users that have no computer can take camcorder to any Pure Digital Processing lab and have a DVD created while they wait.
• DVD can be played on a home DVD player and shared with friends or family

It auto corrects well for environmental brightness. For the most part it handled them well with good video quality and color saturation. The camera does not work at all in low or very low light conditions. This is not the camera to use in a dimly lit club environment for example. The camera records the best quality video in brightly lit rooms and daytime outdoor environments.

The camera captures at 448 by 336 pixels at 30 frames per second using the MPEG-4 XVID codec. It records audio using Microsoft ADPCM at a bit rate of 64kb/s. The audio quality is good considering the mic is inside the camera’s case. The problem with this mic setup is that when you push zoom, click record or stop you hear that button click sound very loudly during video playback. I will consider this the single worst aspect of the camera. Another problem I encountered is that the video software supplied with the camera would not install on my up to date Windows XP PC. However you can still easily access and retrieve your recorded videos by opening the camera as a hard drive via the computer. The camera sets itself up automatically as a hard drive when connected via the supplied USB cable to the computer. In my tests, 3.5 minutes of video yields an AVI file about 26.5 MB in size.

Video playback directly from the camera via the supplied different cable to a TV looks pretty pixilated. The quality worsens when video is recorded in lower light levels. Video file playback on a computer show looks much better.

The interface on the camera is very minimal. There are 4 buttons: Power, Play, Record, Delete and a 4-way directional pad for digital zooming and cycling through record videos. There is no ability to adjust any other settings.

All in all, the RCA Small Wonder an inexpensive and relatively quality solution for recording up to 30 minutes of video in normal lighting conditions. Good for recording quick movies and sending them to friends through the Internet. And not so good for recording important life events and watching them on a TV.

Customer Review

I bought this camera for my 9-year-old son to "make movies" with and he loves it. The best feature is the ultimate simplicity of the camera -- it has only 4 buttons (power, record, play, delete) and a 4-way directional pad and uses plain old AA batteries. Press the power button, press Record, and you're making movies. Press Record again to stop. You can give it to a child and he'll literally be shooting video 10 seconds later -- it's that simple and easy.


Each "movie" is saved to its own file on the camera, so you can use the directional pad to scroll through them and play them back instantly, right on the camera. The screen and speaker are surprisingly good. And the built-in USB connector and software make it ridiculously easy to transfer the video to your computer. I was worried that 30 minutes wouldn't be enough storage between transfers, but it's actually a very long time as video goes.


Most of all, this camera is just plain FUN. Because you know the quality of the video is just average (though better than you might think), you don't have to worry about it. Use your "real" camcorder for capturing important memories, but give this little camera to a kid and watch him have a blast with it. You'll enjoy seeing the world from a kid's perspective, too, when you watch the resulting clips.


it does not use a memory card or stick, just connects via USB to your computer (how easy is that!?)

it does have an internal hard drive (or similar), so I don't have to have tape - yay (someone told me it's solid state? whatever!, it's great!)


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