Thumbs Up:

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 has rotating 2.5-inch display; HDMI output; 480p, 720p and 1020p video and one-touch upload button for Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. The Bloggie CM5 is compatible to both Windows and Apple Mac machines. It has two slots for SD card and memory Stick Duo. This Sony Bloggie has both 20x digital zoom and 5x optical zoom.

Thumbs Down:

The flip-type design of Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 is large as compared to other models. There is no HDMI cable and carrying case inside the package. The camcorder also does not have mic input port for adding optional stereo microphone. You have to purchase both separately. The CD version of Sony Picture Motion Browser will not work on Mac.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 is a flip-type compact 1080p camcorder, which has 1/2.5” sized CMOS optical sensor having resolution of 5-megapixels. The Bloggie MHS-CM5 offers 20x digital zoom and 5x optical zoom. The maximum shutter speed is 1/4000 sec and minimum is 1/15 sec. The shooting mode is Digital Photo mode.

Zoom type lens has a focal length of 6.3mm-31.5mm with an aperture of F/3.3. The focal length equivalent to 35mm camera is 41mm-205mm. The focus adjustment is Automatic and zoom adjustment is motorized drive.

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 has 2.5-inch rotating LCD display having 230,000-pixel resolution. The camcorder effective video resolution is 2.07-megapixels and effective still resolution is 5.038-megapixels. The still image format is JPEG and supported resolution options are 1080p, 720p and 480p.

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 supports NTSC and PAL analog video formats and digital video format of H.264 and MPEG-4. Sony has included its Sony Steady Shot Electronic Image Stabilizer in the Bloggie camcorder. In addition, it has Automatic white-balance and its exposure modes are Program and Automatic. The camcorder supports widescreen video capture.

The additional features of Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 are USB 2.0 compatibility, inbuilt mono-mode microphone, YouTube capture mode, Face detection and USB charging. The Bloggie camcorder has connectors of 1×component video output, 1×HDMI output, 1×composite video/audio output and 1×USB. The MHS-CM5 has two expansion slots: 1×SD Memory Card and 1×Memory Stick PRO Duo.

The operating system required for connecting Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 to PC is Windows XP SP3/Vista/Windows 7 or Apple Mac OS X 10.4-10.6. Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 has 980mAH Sony NP-BK1 lithium ion battery. The accessories in the package include 1×component video/audio cable, 1×A/V cable, 1×USB cable, drivers and software disc, external battery charger and wrist strap.  Sony is giving one-year parts-and-labor limited warranty on is Bloggie camcorder.

Razzle Dazzle:

We thank Sony for flip-style compact design camcorder like Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5. However, the compact design feels bigger. The Bloggie MHS-CM5 measures 4-inch tall, 2.8-inch wide and 1.6-inch deep and it weighs 6.9 Oz. The CM5 camcorder has a pistol-grip design with a flip-fold LCD display. It can easily fit in loose pant pockets and small bag, but it cannot fit in tight pant pockets.

Inside Dope:

Sony has not performed well in growing low budget pocket camcorder until now. Flip Video has a good hold in market with its candy bar design vertical camcorders and its price ranges from $150 to $250. Sony’s NSC-GC1 Net-sharing Webbie camcorder was a big flop. Now, Sony is back with new pocket camcorder Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5, which has pistol-grip design like cameras from Aiptek and Sanyo. The Bloggie has same features like its predecessor Webbie, which include lithium ion battery, 2.5-inch flip LCD, 5x optical zoom and 1080p video capture. The advantages of this Bloggie are mini-HDMI connector for HD video output and onboard USB connector. You can simply plug this USB connector in computer’s USB port without a cable. The Bloggie can be charged through USB connection to computer.

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 can record real HD videos with 1920×1080 pixel resolution in H.264-compressed MPEG4 format. There is a new 60fps to 720p mode. The camcorder supports Memory Stick Duo Cards and SDHC. Sony’s Picture Motion Browser Portable software is now compatible to Apple Mac.

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 has both 5x optical zoom and digital zoom. Most of the flip-style camcorders only offer digital zoom and not optical zoom, which is an advantage for the Bloggie. However, its digital zoom is not useful as picture degrades when you use that feature. The optical zoom of the MHS-CM5 is not stellar and the auto-focus is a bit slow on zoom, but the image is sharp. At high zoom levels, you have to keep the hands ultra-steady because the video will look shaky.

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 can focus on nearby objects even close about 2-inch. This nearby macro-mode focus is an advantage over other flip style camcorders. Kodak Zi8 could only focus closely about 6-inch in its macro-mode. You can get macro and tight shots of tiny objects, which are important to display close-up details.

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 offers 1080p or 60fps 720p-capture settings, however, in this you cannot engage Sony Steady Shot electronic image stabilization. This image stabilization is only available at 720p 30 fps or at 640×480 lower resolution mode. The video quality was better without electronic image stabilization, but it was less jittery with fewer artifacts. The Bloggie MHS-CM5 has tripod mount on its bottom for capturing good and solid images.

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 is gives good image quality that is well comparable to standard set by Flip Ultra HD and Flip Mino. The color is oversaturated and warm; however, the video is sharp. Although, the Bloggie CM5 adjusts exposure very fast, yet the auto-focus is very slow. Like most flip-style camcorders, it under-exposes backlit subjects. In low light shooting, there is few softness and noise. The camcorder drops the shutter speed occasionally until it adjusts in low light, which results in bouts of slow motion. Overall, the video looks good and solid.

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 has straightforward navigation, but still beginners will have to refer the start-up manual to get a good hold of all the settings. Comparatively, Flip camcorders are easier to use, but they do not have most required and preferred settings. You can simply open the LCD to turn on the camcorder. The options like face detection, image stabilization and resolution will appear on pressing a menu button. There is an option to switch to still-image capture even while recording videos. The Bloggie also has option to turn on/off features like face detection.

Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 has lithium ion battery that has a life of 105 minutes recording time as per Sony. For more backup, additional Sony NP-BK1 batteries can be purchased. The sound recording is much better others, but the Bloggie MHS-CM5 does not have mic input port for adding optional stereo microphone. This feature is available on Creative Vado HD 3rd Generation and Kodak Zi8.

The real use to shoot 1080p video is to provide capability for scaling recorded video on HDTV or computer screen via HDMI output. However, the scaling of Bloggie recorded HD video does not match the scaling of video captured by full-fledged HD camcorder. You will get larger sizes while shooting in 720p and 1080p. The only disadvantage is that file size is very large in 1080p, so you need a high capacity memory-card. As per Sony, an 8GB card can hold either 80 minutes of video recording in 480 minutes shooting in VGA/30fps or 240 minutes in 720/30fps or 160 minutes in 720/60fps or 80 minutes in 1080/30 fps.

The key selling point of flip-type model has been easy transfer of the recorded videos from camera to distribute. Sony had made various improvements in its Picture Motion Portable Browser 5.0 software for the same. However, we still have some complaints about this software. A basic version of software is embedded in the Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5, which will install automatically when you connect it to Windows or Mac computer. Full version of Picture Motion Browser 5.0 can be installed only on Windows via CD included inside package. In full version in Windows, you can trim the clips and extract still frames. Both of the versions allow one-touch video uploads to Facebook, MySpace, Shutterfly, PhotoBucket, Picasa, DailyMotion and YouTube, which requires you to store the username and password for each website. You can also e-mail clips to your family and friends.

The Picture Motion Browser Portable 5.0 is not compatible with Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 64-bit editions and Mac OS X. However, you can drag and drop the files through Bloggie’s USB compatible storage and edit using other software like Photoshop, Windows Movie Maker and iMovie. The Bloggie MHS-CM5 has internal memory as well as two additional slots for memory card. You will have to dig in a lot to look for your files. This is not all; you will have to keep the LCD open when you connect the device to a computer. This is not a deal killer but certainly is a big turn off because it may invite accidents.

Overall, the sharing process to connect the camcorder on PC is more user-friendly in Flip Video camcorders. Sony has to make some improvements in this area.

Nitty Gritty:

The Bloggie MHS-CM5 is first Sony’s mini-camcorder that we can recommend to you at this price. We agree that MHS-CM5 has some drawbacks and not so compact as Creative Vado HD, Kodak Zi8 and Flip Video HD. Sony Bloggie MHS-CM5 has some advantages over other flip-type camcorders such as superior video quality, 5x optical zoom with 20x digital zoom and close focus.

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